Empire (1962 TV series)
Encyclopedia
Empire, an hour-long Western
television series set on a 1960s 500000 acres (2,023.4 km²) ranch
in New Mexico
, starred Richard Egan
(1921–1987), Terry Moore
(born 1929), and Ryan O'Neal
(born 1941). It ran on NBC
for a season between September 25, 1962, and May 14, 1963. In the second abbreviated season, from September 24 to December 31, 1963, it was renamed Redigo
after Egan's title character, Jim Redigo, the general manager of the fictitious Garrett ranch in Empire, and reduced to a half-hour.
A Summer Place
. Redigo was a rare ranch manager, having a Master of Business Administration
degree. The ranch was located somewhere in the American Southwest, but the exact location had never been pinpointed. The Garretts did have an empire, due to its being involved in, besides ranching, Oil; agriculture and mining.
Empire also featured 22-year-old Ryan O'Neal, some two years before he gained greater recognition as Rodney Harrington in ABC
's Peyton Place
. O'Neal, who began acting in 1959, played the son, Tal Garrett. Terry Moore portrayed O'Neal's 33-year-old sister, Connie who had a romantic interest in Redigo. Their mother and ranch matriarch, Lucia, was played by 53-year-old Anne Seymour (1909–1988).
Anne Seymour and Terry Moore were dropped at mid-season; it was said that Seymour's character Lucia had died and Moore's character, Connie, had left the ranch in her grief. Charles Bronson
(1921–2003), then forty-one, entered at mid-season in an all-male cast to portray the tough ranch hand Paul Moreno.
In the second 15-episode season, O'Neal and Bronson were gone, too. Roger Davis
(born 1939), later of ABC's Alias Smith and Jones
, was added to the cast as Redigo's ranch hand. Elena Verdugo
, later of Robert Young
's Marcus Welby, M.D.
, starred as Gerry.
Among the guest stars, Robert Vaughn
and Inger Stevens
(1934–1970) played paraplegics in separate episodes. Jeremy Slate
(1926–2006), played a ranch hand whose competition with Ryan O'Neal ends in a deadly boxing
match. Robert Culp
, previously of CBS's Trackdown
and later of NBC's I Spy, played an ambitious man who schemes to marry Terry Moore and fire Redigo. Other guest stars included character actor
Claude Akins
(1926–1994), Clegg Hoyt
(1910–1967), Pat Conway
(1931–1981), Gilman Rankin
(1911–1993), John Vivyan
(1915–1983), Ralph Meeker
(1920–1988), Ray Danton
(1931–1992), Joanne Linville, Joanna Barnes
, and Telly Savalas
(1922–1994), later the title character in Kojak
. Dayton Lummis
appeared as Jason Simms in "Green, Green Hills" (1962) and as Thomas Fenton Giler in "Down There, the World" (1963). John M. Pickard
appeared as a sheriff in "A Place to Put a Life" (1962). Joanna Moore guest-starred once on Empire and thereafter married Ryan O'Neal, becoming the mother of actress Tatum O'Neal
.
. William Sackheim and Hal Hudson, formerly with CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
, produced the series, a Screen Gems
offering. The program was filmed at the Eaves Movie Ranch near Santa Fe
and near Storrie Lake in Las Vegas
, New Mexico.
Empire had mediocre ratings opposite CBS's The Red Skelton Show
and the last season of ABC's detective
series, Hawaiian Eye
with Robert Conrad
and Connie Stevens
. The series was reduced to a half-hour the second year, as Redigo. Redigo had by that time secured his own smaller ranch.
The shorter format made it difficult to develop complex characters, and the show was soon canceled. Still on Tuesday evenings, Redigo fared poorly against Red Skelton
and ABC's military situation comedy
McHale's Navy
starring Ernest Borgnine
.
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
television series set on a 1960s 500000 acres (2,023.4 km²) ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, starred Richard Egan
Richard Egan (actor)
Richard Egan was an American actor. In some films he is credited as Richard Eagan.-Career:Born in San Francisco, California, Egan served in the United States Army as a judo instructor during World War II...
(1921–1987), Terry Moore
Terry Moore (actress)
Helen Luella Koford , better known as Terry Moore, is an American actress. Terry Moore made her film debut at age 11 and grew up with all the icons of the Hollywood era that made Hollywood what it is today, also known as "The Golden Age of Hollywood". Moore is an Academy Award nominated actress...
(born 1929), and Ryan O'Neal
Ryan O'Neal
Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal , better known as Ryan O'Neal, is an American actor best known for his appearances in the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place and for his roles in such films as Paper Moon , Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon , A Bridge Too Far , and Love Story , for which he received...
(born 1941). It ran on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
for a season between September 25, 1962, and May 14, 1963. In the second abbreviated season, from September 24 to December 31, 1963, it was renamed Redigo
Redigo (TV series)
Redigo is a 15-week Western dramatic series, set on a New Mexico ranch during the early 1960s, which aired over NBC from September 24 to December 31, 1963. It starred Richard Egan as ranch owner Jim Redigo, Roger Davis as Mike the ranch hand, and Elena Verdugo as Gerry...
after Egan's title character, Jim Redigo, the general manager of the fictitious Garrett ranch in Empire, and reduced to a half-hour.
Cast
Egan starred in the series at the age of forty-one, having previously been in the hit filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
A Summer Place
A Summer Place
A Summer Place is a 1958 novel by Sloan Wilson, a follow-on to The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It was adapted into a 1959 film of the same name.-Plot summary:...
. Redigo was a rare ranch manager, having a Master of Business Administration
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...
degree. The ranch was located somewhere in the American Southwest, but the exact location had never been pinpointed. The Garretts did have an empire, due to its being involved in, besides ranching, Oil; agriculture and mining.
Empire also featured 22-year-old Ryan O'Neal, some two years before he gained greater recognition as Rodney Harrington in ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Peyton Place
Peyton Place (TV series)
Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969.Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in...
. O'Neal, who began acting in 1959, played the son, Tal Garrett. Terry Moore portrayed O'Neal's 33-year-old sister, Connie who had a romantic interest in Redigo. Their mother and ranch matriarch, Lucia, was played by 53-year-old Anne Seymour (1909–1988).
Anne Seymour and Terry Moore were dropped at mid-season; it was said that Seymour's character Lucia had died and Moore's character, Connie, had left the ranch in her grief. Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
(1921–2003), then forty-one, entered at mid-season in an all-male cast to portray the tough ranch hand Paul Moreno.
In the second 15-episode season, O'Neal and Bronson were gone, too. Roger Davis
Roger Davis
Roger Davis may refer to:*Roger Davis , American actor*Roger Davis , American actor in television series Dark Shadows and Alias Smith and Jones...
(born 1939), later of ABC's Alias Smith and Jones
Alias Smith and Jones
Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western series that originally aired on ABC from 1971 to 1973. It stars Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, a pair of Western cousin outlaws trying to reform...
, was added to the cast as Redigo's ranch hand. Elena Verdugo
Elena Verdugo
Elena Verdugo is an American actress who began in films at the age of six in Cavalier of the West . Her career in radio, television, and film spanned six decades....
, later of Robert Young
Robert Young (actor)
Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...
's Marcus Welby, M.D.
Marcus Welby, M.D.
Marcus Welby, M.D. is an American medical drama television program that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969, to July 29, 1976. It starred Robert Young as a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, and was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell...
, starred as Gerry.
Among the guest stars, Robert Vaughn
Robert Vaughn
Robert Francis Vaughn, , is an American actor noted for stage, film and television work. His best known roles include the suave spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., wealthy detective Harry Rule in the 1970s television series The Protectors, Albert Stroller in...
and Inger Stevens
Inger Stevens
Inger Stevens was a Swedish-American movie and TV actress.- Early life :Inger Stevens was born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an insecure child and was often ill. When she was nine, her parents divorced and she moved with her father to New York City...
(1934–1970) played paraplegics in separate episodes. Jeremy Slate
Jeremy Slate
Jeremy Slate was an American film and television actor.-Early life:He attended a military academy and joined the navy when he was 16. He was barely 18 when his destroyer assisted in the Normandy Invasion on D-Day . After the war he attended St. Lawrence University where he graduated with honors in...
(1926–2006), played a ranch hand whose competition with Ryan O'Neal ends in a deadly boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
match. Robert Culp
Robert Culp
Robert Martin Culp was an American actor, scriptwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp first earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy , the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents...
, previously of CBS's Trackdown
Trackdown
Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. The series offered more than seventy episodes and was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio...
and later of NBC's I Spy, played an ambitious man who schemes to marry Terry Moore and fire Redigo. Other guest stars included character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
Claude Akins
Claude Akins
Claude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...
(1926–1994), Clegg Hoyt
Clegg Hoyt
Clegg Hoyt was an American actor who appeared primarily on television.- Filmography :* In the Heat of the Night ... as Deputy...
(1910–1967), Pat Conway
Pat Conway
Patrick Douglas Conway, known as Pat Conway , was an American actor best known for his role as young but tough Sheriff Clay Hollister on the ABC and then syndicated western television series Tombstone Territory . He was a maternal grandson of silent film star Francis X...
(1931–1981), Gilman Rankin
Gilman Rankin
Gilman W. Rankin was a Massachusetts-born actor who appeared primarily in television westerns between 1956 and 1975. Between 1957 and 1959, he had a supporting role as Deputy Charlie Riggs in seven episodes of the series Tombstone Territory...
(1911–1993), John Vivyan
John Vivyan
John Vivyan was an American actor active primarily between 1957 and 1970. He was known for his starring role as the honest debonair gambler in the CBS adventure series Mr. Lucky.-Early life and career:Born John C...
(1915–1983), Ralph Meeker
Ralph Meeker
Ralph Meeker was an American stage and film actor best-known for starring in the 1953 Broadway production of Picnic, and in the 1955 film noir cult classic Kiss Me Deadly.-Career:...
(1920–1988), Ray Danton
Ray Danton
Ray Danton , also known as Raymond Danton, was a radio, film, stage, and television actor, director, and producer whose most famous role was The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond...
(1931–1992), Joanne Linville, Joanna Barnes
Joanna Barnes
Joanna Barnes is an American actress and writer.Barnes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but moved to Los Angeles, California soon after finishing her education, and took up a contract with Columbia Pictures...
, and Telly Savalas
Telly Savalas
Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
(1922–1994), later the title character in Kojak
Kojak
Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...
. Dayton Lummis
Dayton Lummis
Dayton Lummis. Sr. , was an American actor of film and television who specialized in the genre of anthology and western series, often playing authority figures. From 1959-1960, he appeared as Marshal Andy Morrison in nine episodes of NBC's Law of the Plainsman western, with Michael Ansara and...
appeared as Jason Simms in "Green, Green Hills" (1962) and as Thomas Fenton Giler in "Down There, the World" (1963). John M. Pickard
John Pickard (American actor)
John M. Pickard was an American actor who appeared primarily in television Westerns.-Early life and career:...
appeared as a sheriff in "A Place to Put a Life" (1962). Joanna Moore guest-starred once on Empire and thereafter married Ryan O'Neal, becoming the mother of actress Tatum O'Neal
Tatum O'Neal
Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress best known for her film work as a child actress in the 1970s. She is the youngest to win a competitive Academy Award, at the age of 10, which she won for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon opposite her father Ryan O'Neal...
.
Production
Empire was created by Kathleen Hite, a writer for CBS's GunsmokeGunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
. William Sackheim and Hal Hudson, formerly with CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.-Overview:Zane Grey Theatre was created by Luke Short and Charles A. Wallace...
, produced the series, a Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
offering. The program was filmed at the Eaves Movie Ranch near Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
and near Storrie Lake in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, New Mexico
Las Vegas is a city in San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. Once two separate municipalities both named Las Vegas, west Las Vegas and east Las Vegas , divided by the Gallinas River, retain distinct characters and separate, rival school districts. The population was 14,565 at the 2000...
, New Mexico.
Empire had mediocre ratings opposite CBS's The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as...
and the last season of ABC's detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
series, Hawaiian Eye
Hawaiian Eye
Hawaiian Eye is an American television series that ran from October 1959 to September 1963 on the American Broadcasting Company television network.-Premise:...
with Robert Conrad
Robert Conrad
Robert Conrad is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the 1965 CBS television series The Wild Wild West, in which he played the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West, and his portrayal of World War II ace Pappy Boyington in the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep...
and Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens is an American actress and singer, best known for her roles in the television series Hawaiian Eye and other TV and film work.-Early life:...
. The series was reduced to a half-hour the second year, as Redigo. Redigo had by that time secured his own smaller ranch.
The shorter format made it difficult to develop complex characters, and the show was soon canceled. Still on Tuesday evenings, Redigo fared poorly against Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
and ABC's military situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
McHale's Navy
McHale's Navy
McHale's Navy is an American television sitcom series which ran for 138 half-hour episodes from October 11,1962, to August 31, 1966, on the ABC network. The series was filmed in black and white and originated in a one-hour drama called Seven Against the Sea, broadcast on April 3, 1962...
starring Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
.