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Robert Horton (actor)
Encyclopedia
Robert Horton is an American
television
actor
, who was most noted for the role of the frontier scout Flint McCullough in the NBC
Western
television series, Wagon Train
(1957–1962). Horton quit that series to pursue a career in musical theater.
According to the April 20, 1959, issue of Time magazine, Horton's measurements were 42-31-40. Horton also played Ronald W. Reagan's role in the TV version of Kings Row
(1955), which featured Jack Kelly
and ran for seven episodes as part of the Warner Bros. Presents
series, rotating with a TV version of Casablanca
and a western series called Cheyenne
.
The ruggedly handsome Horton made dozens of appearances in movies and television shows between 1951 and 1989, including an episode of Ray Milland
's Meet Mr. McNutley
and John Bromfield
's Sheriff of Cochise
. Horton also appeared on seven separate episodes of the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents
, including memorably as a tennis-playing bookie and blackmailer opposite Betsy von Furstenberg
in one titled "The Disappearing Trick" which was directed by Arthur Hiller
. He appeared as Danny Barnes in the episode "No Place to Hide" of the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson
and on the NBC
interview program Here's Hollywood
and NBC's anthology series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show
. He appeared several timess too on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
.
Horton is also remembered for his offbeat role as a cowboy amnesia
c in his ABC
television series A Man Called Shenandoah
(1965–1966). Horton even took a turn in daytime, playing the part of Whit McColl on As the World Turns
(1983–1984). In 1966 he starred in "The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones", the first Western made specifically for television and simultaneous distribution to cinemas in Europe. It was made by MGM and co-starred Sal Mineo
and Diane Baker
.
He went on to perform for many years in theaters and nightclubs all over America and in Australia as a singer (sometimes with his wife, the former Marilynn Bradley). In 1963, producer David Merrick
hired him as the male lead in the musical version of N. Richard Nash
's play The Rainmaker
(entitled 110 in the Shade
), in the part played on the screen by Burt Lancaster
. The musical, which boasted a score by Tom Jones (writer)
and Harvey Schmidt
, ran for 330 performances on Broadway
.
Horton is also an accomplished pilot and aircraft owner, having once said in an 'Plane and Pilot' interview, "His three greatest thrills were his first solo flight, a performance before Queen Elizabeth, and being featured on This Is Your Life
". His frequent co-pilot was his French Poodle "Jamie".
Horton has been the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards for television, including the prestigious Golden Boot
, and recently, the Cowboy Spirit Award at the National Festival of the West. Mr. and Mrs. Horton live in Encino, California
.
Actor Robert Fuller
is sometimes described as having replaced Horton on Wagon Train. Though Fuller did have a role on the program after Horton departed, according to an August 17, 2009 interview with Fuller in On Screen and Beyond, he did not replace him. The two are sometimes confused with each other because of a general physical resemblance and because they have the same birthday (July 29), though Horton is nine years older than Fuller.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, who was most noted for the role of the frontier scout Flint McCullough in the 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...
Western
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, Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
(1957–1962). Horton quit that series to pursue a career in musical theater.
According to the April 20, 1959, issue of Time magazine, Horton's measurements were 42-31-40. Horton also played Ronald W. Reagan's role in the TV version of Kings Row
Kings Row
Kings Row is a 1942 film starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, and Ronald Reagan that tells a story of young people growing up in a small American town at the turn of the twentieth century, beset by social pressure, dark secrets, and the challenges and tragedies one must face as a result of these...
(1955), which featured Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly (actor)
Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...
and ran for seven episodes as part of the Warner Bros. Presents
Warner Bros. Presents
Warner Bros. Presents is the umbrella title for three series telecast as part of the 1955-56 season on ABC: Cheyenne, a new Western series that originated on Presents, and two based on classic Warner Bros. films, Casablanca and Kings Row....
series, rotating with a TV version of Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
and a western series called Cheyenne
Cheyenne (TV series)
Cheyenne is a western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season...
.
The ruggedly handsome Horton made dozens of appearances in movies and television shows between 1951 and 1989, including an episode of Ray Milland
Ray Milland
Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...
's Meet Mr. McNutley
Meet Mr. McNutley
Meet Mr. McNutley is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS Television from 1953–1955, with Ray Milland in the role of fastidious Professor Ray McNutley, the head of the English Department at the fictitious Lynnhaven College for girls...
and John Bromfield
John Bromfield
John Bromfield was an American film and television actor.Bromfield was born in South Bend, Indiana. He played football and was a boxing champion in college. He served in the United States Navy. In 1948, he twice harpooned a whale in the documentary film Harpoon...
's Sheriff of Cochise
Sheriff of Cochise
Sheriff of Cochise , renamed U.S. Marshal , is a 58-episode syndicated western-themed crime drama set in Arizona and starring John Bromfield as law enforcement officer Frank Morgan. In the first two seasons, Morgan was sheriff of Cochise County...
. Horton also appeared on seven separate episodes of the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
, including memorably as a tennis-playing bookie and blackmailer opposite Betsy von Furstenberg
Betsy von Furstenberg
Betsy von Furstenberg is a German-born American radio, television, film, and Broadway actress.-Birth and childhood:...
in one titled "The Disappearing Trick" which was directed by Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...
. He appeared as Danny Barnes in the episode "No Place to Hide" of the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson
The DuPont Show with June Allyson
The DuPont Show with June Allyson is an American anthology drama series which aired on CBS from September 21, 1959 to April 3, 1961 with rebroadcasts continuing until June 12, 1961...
and on the 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...
interview program Here's Hollywood
Here's Hollywood
Here's Hollywood is an American celebrity interview program which aired on weekday afternoons on NBC at 4:30 Eastern time from September 26, 1960, to December 28, 1962.-Overview:...
and NBC's anthology series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show
The Barbara Stanwyck Show
The Barbara Stanwyck Show is an American anthology drama television series which ran on NBC from September 1960 to September 1961. Barbara Stanwyck served as hostess, and starred in all but four of the half-hour productions. The four she did not star in were actually pilot episodes of potential...
. He appeared several timess too on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The Ford Show
The Ford Show is a half-hour comedy/variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired in color on NBC television on Thursday evenings from October 4, 1956 to June 29, 1961....
.
Horton is also remembered for his offbeat role as a cowboy amnesia
Amnesia
Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...
c in his 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...
television series A Man Called Shenandoah
A Man Called Shenandoah
A Man Called Shenandoah is a Western series that aired on ABC-TV from 1965 to 1966 by MGM Television.-Synopsis:The series starred Robert Horton as a man who was found shot and left for dead on the trail and is revived...
(1965–1966). Horton even took a turn in daytime, playing the part of Whit McColl on As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
(1983–1984). In 1966 he starred in "The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones", the first Western made specifically for television and simultaneous distribution to cinemas in Europe. It was made by MGM and co-starred Sal Mineo
Sal Mineo
Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. , was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause...
and Diane Baker
Diane Baker
Diane Carol Baker is an American actress who has appeared in motion pictures and on television since 1959.-Early life:...
.
He went on to perform for many years in theaters and nightclubs all over America and in Australia as a singer (sometimes with his wife, the former Marilynn Bradley). In 1963, producer David Merrick
David Merrick
David Merrick was a prolific Tony Award-winning American theatrical producer.-Life and career:Born David Lee Margulois to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Merrick graduated from Washington University, then studied law at the Jesuit-run Saint Louis University School of Law...
hired him as the male lead in the musical version of N. Richard Nash
N. Richard Nash
N. Richard Nash was a writer and dramatist best known for writing Broadway shows, including The Rainmaker.-Early life:...
's play The Rainmaker
The Rainmaker (play)
The Rainmaker is a play written by N. Richard Nash in the early 1950s. The play opened on October 28, 1954 at the Cort Theatre in New York and ran for 125 performances. It was directed by Joseph Anthony and produced by Ethel Linder Reiner....
(entitled 110 in the Shade
110 in the Shade
110 in the Shade is a musical with a book by N. Richard Nash, lyrics by Tom Jones, and music by Harvey Schmidt.Based on Nash's 1954 play The Rainmaker, it focuses on Lizzie Curry, a spinster living on a ranch in the American southwest, and her relationships with local sheriff File, a cautious...
), in the part played on the screen by Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
. The musical, which boasted a score by Tom Jones (writer)
Tom Jones (writer)
Tom Jones is a lyricist of musical theatre. His best known work is The Fantasticks, which ran off-Broadway from 1960 until 2002, and the hit song from the same, Try to Remember. Other songs from "The Fantasticks" include "Soon It's Gonna Rain", "Much More" and "I Can See It"...
and Harvey Schmidt
Harvey Schmidt
Harvey Lester Schmidt is an American composer for musical theatre. He is best known for composing the music for the longest running musical in history, The Fantasticks, which ran off-Broadway from 1960 - 2002.-Biography:...
, ran for 330 performances on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
.
Horton is also an accomplished pilot and aircraft owner, having once said in an 'Plane and Pilot' interview, "His three greatest thrills were his first solo flight, a performance before Queen Elizabeth, and being featured on This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
". His frequent co-pilot was his French Poodle "Jamie".
Horton has been the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards for television, including the prestigious Golden Boot
Golden Boot Awards
The Golden Boot Awards honor actors, actresses, and crew members who have made significant contributions to the genre of Western television and movies. The award is sponsored and presented by the Motion Picture & Television Fund...
, and recently, the Cowboy Spirit Award at the National Festival of the West. Mr. and Mrs. Horton live in Encino, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Actor Robert Fuller
Robert Fuller (actor)
Robert Fuller is an American former television Western actor and current rancher. In his five decades of television, he's best known for starring roles on the popular 1960s western series Laramie as Jess Harper, and Wagon Train as Cooper Smith, as well as his work for his lead role, Dr...
is sometimes described as having replaced Horton on Wagon Train. Though Fuller did have a role on the program after Horton departed, according to an August 17, 2009 interview with Fuller in On Screen and Beyond, he did not replace him. The two are sometimes confused with each other because of a general physical resemblance and because they have the same birthday (July 29), though Horton is nine years older than Fuller.