The Rifleman

The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1870s and 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired from 1958, to 1963, as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series on
American television to show a widowed parent raising a child.

The series centers on Lucas McCain, a widowed Union Civil War veteran (a lieutenant in the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment who received a battlefield commission at the Battle of Five Forks just before the end of the war) and a homesteader. McCain buys a ranch outside the fictitious town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory, in the pilot episode. He and his son Mark came from Enid, Oklahoma, after his wife died when Mark was 6 years old.

This is the Complete series, all 168 episodes in order.

Cast

Main cast

Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain, a rancher, a veteran Union Army officer of the American Civil War and widowed father
Johnny Crawford as Mark McCain, Lucas' son
Paul Fix as Micah Torrance, marshal of North Fork, New Mexico

Recurring cast

Bill Quinn as Sweeney, the North Fork Saloon bartender
Patricia Blair as Mallory House hotel owner Lou Mallory
Joe Higgins as blacksmith Nels Swenson
Harlan Warde as banker John Hamilton
Joan Taylor as general store owner Milly Scott
Hope Summers as general store owner Hattie Denton
John Harmon as hotel clerk Eddie Halstead

Seven actors played the town doctor during the series (usually known as "Doc Burrage"): Edgar Buchanan, Fay Roope, Rhys Williams,
Jack Kruschen, Robert Burton, Ralph Moody and Bert Stevens. Several actors also played blacksmith Nels Swenson.

Guest stars

More than 500 actors made guest appearances in more than 970 credited roles during the five-year run of the series.

Guest stars included veteran actors: John Anderson, Richard Anderson, Whit Bissell, John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr., Ellen Corby, John Dehner, Jack Elam, Dabbs Greer, Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr., Agnes Moorehead, Denver Pyle, and Lee Van Cleef, most appearing multiple times in different roles. Several then-newcomers also appeared in the series, including Claude Akins, James Coburn (credited as "Jim") Mark Goddard, Dennis Hopper, Michael Landon, Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Vaughn, and Robert Culp. Notable people in other fields also made cameo appearances such as singer Sammy Davis, Jr., future baseball Hall of Famers Duke Snider and Don Drysdale, comedian Buddy Hackett and writer, director and producer Paul Mazursky.

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