Rawhide (TV series)

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Rawhide was a television western series which aired on the American network CBS from 1959 to 1966. It starred Eric Fleming and launched the career of Clint Eastwood, who played Rowdy Yates.

The series ran for eight seasons on the CBS network, from January 9, 1959 to January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 episodes, all filmed and broadcast in black and white. Its premiere episode reached the top 20 in the Nielsen ratings. During its run it rose steadily in popularity until, towards the end of the series' run, it was one of America's top ten shows. Rawhide was the fourth longest-running American TV western, beaten only by nine years of The Virginian, fourteen years of Bonanza, and twenty years of Gunsmoke.

The typical Rawhide story involved drovers, portrayed by Eric Fleming (Trail Boss Gil Favor) and Clint Eastwood (Rowdy Yates), coming upon people on the trail and getting drawn into solving whatever problem they presented or were confronting. Sometimes one of the members of the cattle drive or some of the others would venture into a nearby town and encounter some trouble or other from which they needed to be rescued. Some of the stories were obviously easier in production terms but the peak form of the show was convincing and naturalistic, and sometimes brutal. Its situations could range from parched plains to anthrax, ghostly riders to wolves, cattle rustlers, bandits, murderers, and so forth.

Guest stars included: Barbara Stanwyck, Buddy Ebsen, Lon Chaney, Jr., Frankie Avalon, Claude Akins, Robert Culp, Mary Astor, Charles Herbert, Earl Holliman, Alan Hale, Jr. and Dwayne Hickman, along with regulars Sheb Wooley, Paul Brinegar, John Ireland, and Raymond St. Jacques.

As stated earlier, Rawhide launched the career of Clint Eastwood, who went on to star in many feature films and also become an Oscar-winning director and producer. Eastwood began the "Man With No Name" western movie series (A Fistful of Dollars, etc.) in 1964 while on summer hiatus from Rawhide and after practically every other cowboy actor in Hollywood had turned it down.

Rawhide gained some unusual popularity following the release of the Saturday Night Live movie The Blues Brothers, when the show's theme song was performed by the blues band when they found themselves at a country bar instead of a blues club.