Sam Benedict is an American legal drama

Legal drama

A legal drama is a work of dramatic fiction about crime and civil litigation. Subtypes of legal dramas include courtroom dramas and legal thrillers, and come in all forms, including novels, television shows, and films. Legal drama sometimes overlap with crime drama, most notably in the case of Law...

 that aired 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...

 from September 1962 to March 1963. The series was created and executive produced by E. Jack Neuman.

Based on real-life lawyer Jacob W. 'Jake' Erlich, who served as technical consultant for the series.

Synopsis

The series starred Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...

 as flamboyant San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 Sam Benedict. Richard Rust

Richard Rust

Richard Rust was an American actor of stage, television, and film born in Boston, Massachusetts, probably best remembered for his role as a young lawyer in NBC's Sam Benedict series. Rust's mother died when he was five, and his father was an officer in the United States Navy...

 portrayed his 24-year-old understudy, Hank Tabor. Joan Tompkins

Joan Tompkins

Joan Tompkins, legally known as Joan Swenson was an American actress of television, film, radio, and stage, who co-founded with her husband, Karl Swenson, an acting company in Beverly Hills, California...

 co-starred in all episodes as Trudy Wagner. Most episodes followed two story lines: first Benedict's case and then Tabor's.

The series was modeled on the career of famous defense lawyer and author Jake Ehrlich

Jake Ehrlich

- Biography :Born near Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland. Known as "the Master," Jake Ehrlich had a fifty year career as a defense and divorce attorney in San Francisco. He authored a dozen books on the law, the Bible, and his own life story...

, who served as a technical consultant to the program.

Guest stars

Guest stars on the series included:

• Elizabeth Ashley
  Elizabeth Ashley
  Elizabeth Ashley is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play Take Her, She's Mine, which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.-Early life:...
  
  
• Phyllis Avery
  Phyllis Avery
  Phyllis Avery was an American television and film actress.-Early life and career:Avery was born in New York City to Evelyn and author Stephen Morehouse Avery. Her father hailed from Webster Groves, Missouri, near St. Louis. Her first role was as Marjorie in the 1951 film Queen for a Day based on...
  
  
• Hazel Court
  Hazel Court
  Hazel Court was an English actress best known for her roles in horror films during the 1950s and early 1960s.-Early life:...
  
  
• Yvonne Craig
  Yvonne Craig
  Yvonne Joyce Craig is an American actress best known for her role as Batgirl from the 1960s TV series Batman, and as the Orion Marta in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Whom Gods Destroy”.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Howard Duff
  Howard Duff
  Howard Green Duff was an American actor of film, television, stage, and radio.Duff was born in Charleston, Washington, now a part of Bremerton. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1932 where he began acting in school plays only after he was cut from the basketball team...
  
  
• Diana Hyland
  Diana Hyland
  Diana Hyland was an American actress best known for her television appearances and occasional films.-Career:Hyland made her acting debut in 1955 in an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents...
  
  
• Nancy Kelly
  Nancy Kelly
  Nancy Kelly was an American actress, who was a movie leading lady in the 1930s, making 36 movies between 1926 and 1977, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James , which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone...
  
  
• Elizabeth MacRae
  Elizabeth MacRae
  Elizabeth MacRae is an actress who guest starred on various television shows from the 1960s to the 1980s...
  
  
• Gary Merrill
  Gary Merrill
  Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances....
  
  
• Vera Miles
  Vera Miles
  Vera Miles is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Psycho and Psycho II.-Early life:...
  
  
• Michael Parks
  Michael Parks
  Michael Parks is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in almost fifty films and has made frequent TV appearances, but is probably best known for his work in recent years with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith as well as the 1969 television series Then Came...
  
  
• Claude Rains
  Claude Rains
  Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
  
  
• Darry Richard
  Darryl Richard (actor)
  Darryl Richard , is a former child actor who appeared on television from 1955 until 1966...
  
  
• Ruth Roman
  Ruth Roman
  Ruth Roman was an American actress. One of her most memorable roles was in the Alfred Hitchcock 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train....
  
  
• 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...
  
  
• Barbara Stuart
  Barbara Stuart
  Barbara Ann Stuart was an American actress.-Major roles:Stuart portrayed "Miss Bunny", the girlfriend of Sergeant Vincent Carter, played by Frank Sutton, on three seasons of CBS's Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C....
  
  

Joseph Schildkraut

Joseph Schildkraut

Joseph Schildkraut was an Austrian stage and film actor.-Early life:Born in Vienna, Austria, Schildkraut was the son of stage actor Rudolph Schildkraut. The younger Schildkraut moved to the United States in the early 1900s. He appeared in many Broadway productions...

 received a best actor Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 nomination for his guest role.

Reception and cancellation

Sam Benedict faced competition from two variety programs: The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show

The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show

The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show was a Western comedy and variety program that ran on ABC television for 13 episodes from September 29 to December 29, 1962...

on ABC (which was axed before Sam Benedict) and the first season of The Jackie Gleason Show

The Jackie Gleason Show

The Jackie Gleason Show is the name of a series of popular American network television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970.-Cavalcade of Stars:...

on CBS.

In the 1963-1964 season, Sam Benedict was replaced at the 7:30 Eastern time slot on Saturdays by another MGM series about a trainee and his mentor

Mentor

In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...

: The Lieutenant

The Lieutenant

The Lieutenant is an American television series, the first created by Gene Roddenberry. It aired on NBC on Saturday evenings in the 1963-1964 television schedule. It was produced by Arena Productions, one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most successful in-house production companies of the 1960s. Situated...

starring Gary Lockwood

Gary Lockwood

Gary Lockwood is an American actor probably best known for his iconic 1968 role as the astronaut Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.-Early life:...

 and 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...

,. Rebroadcasts of the series continued from April to September 7, 1963.