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Hugh O'Brian (6 ft., 176 lbs., 44-32-36) plays the title role in Wyatt Earp, which is perhaps best described in O'Brian's own words: "It's a relaxing show. You can walk away from our program and come back five, ten minutes later, and you haven't really missed anything." At 32, dark-haired, fine-boned Actor O'Brian (real name: Hugh Krampe) looks like an Oklahoma Olivier. In his flowered vest, ruffled shirt, string tie and sideburns, and with two 16-in. Buntline Specials strapped to his thighs, he really cuts the mustard with the teen-age cow bunnies. An exmarine, he is easily the most ambitious of television's men on horseback. He looks pretty silly on a horse ("That boy," says a Hollywood riding instructor, "can't ride nothin' wilder'n a wheelchair"), but Hugh knows how to hold his seat on a board of directors. Among his business interests: a building-equipment firm, a company that rents guns to TV westerns, a hotel, a line of men's toilet articles. Last year Hugh paid taxes on more than $500,000 personal income.
Dale Robertson (6 ft., 180 lbs., 42-34-34), the hero of a plain, everyday, bowlegged western called Wells Fargo, is probably the richest ranahan now riding the airwaves. He owns almost 50% of his show, makes about a million a year out of TV alone, not to mention oil wells, motels, ranches and the use of his name on merchandise. As an actor, Robertson can hardly say heck with his hands tied, but he is probably the best horseman in television, and his shy. Sunday-go-to-meetin' smile provokes what an agent describes as "the sexiest mail in Hollywood." Gimmick: he draws his .38 with his left hand ("That's so's they can't git the drop on me while Ah'm shakin' hands"). Born in Harrah, Okla., Dayle LyMoine Robertson earned a Silver Star during World War II. At 37 he spends much of his spare time drinking milk (three quarts a day), racing quarter horses and taking potshots at his TV opposition. Says Robertson: "The adult westerns are dishonest. All that conversation is just a cheap, underhanded way of makin' up fer the lack of a good story."
Clint Walker (6 ft. 6 in.. 235 lbs., 48-32-36), who after a spectacular case of bunkhouse sulks will shortly resume the big hat in Cheyenne, a routine ride-'em-cowboy story, is generally known in Hollywood as "the next John Wayne." At 31 he looks rather like an unweathered Wayne, with a nice, uneventful face and a chest as big as a wardrobe—on producer's orders, he bares it at least once a program. But unfortunately, Clint, according to the people he works with, is "a mighty mixed-up kid." He is a nature-food crank, demands The Star Treatment at all times. Born in Hartford, Ill.. Norman Eugene Walker quit high school to join the merchant marine, steeplejacked, punched cows in Texas, got married at 21. Van Johnson discovered him working as a deputy sheriff in Las Vegas.