List of Death Valley Days guest stars

James Caan, Karyn Kupcinet, and Roy Thinnes appeared in the episode "Shadow of Violence" (1963)

The following is a list of Death Valley Days guest stars:

A

• Rodolfo Acosta (in 1 of at least 4 appearances) as escapee Alvado was chased by the "Temporary Warden" (1965) James Hume, Ronald Reagan.
• James Adamson (1896–1956) and Felix Nelson (1913–1998) were cast, respectively, as African-American slaves Zack and Zeke, living in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1953 episode "Land of the Free." In the story line, the slaves successfully persuade their kindly master, Dr. Henry Cabell (Laton Riley Kirk, Sr.), to allow them to head west to find gold, by which they would purchase their freedom. Gail Davis appeared as Dr. Cabell's daughter, Jerrie.
• John Agar was cast as Dr. Charles Edwards, a new graduate of an eastern medical school who sets up his practice in Placerville, California as a "Pioneer Doctor"(1963 episode). He faces a fight for patients with "Doc" Hutchins (Dick Foran), who is engaged only in superstition. Edwards treats some patients of Hutchins who are getting worse including an operation on a town socialite, wife of Lucius Bidwell, Ross Elliott. Hutchins starts and loses the resulting fatal gunfight with Edwards who has to sign his rival's death certificate.
• Claude Akins played the Confederate raider Caleb Luck in the 1960 episode "Splinter Station." In the story line, Luck is sent to destroy the station, owned by Mary Taylor (Jane Russell). The station provided horses for the Union Army. The episode also features John Mitchum as Ox Jameson.
• John Alderson was cast as the rugged trail guide Hugh Glass in the 1966 episode "Hugh Glass Meets the Bear," the story of a trapper mauled by a bear and left for dead, but who survived by crawling two hundred miles to safety. Others in the episode were Carl Reindel as Jim Bridger, Morgan Woodward as trapper Thomas Fitzpatrick, Victor French as Louis Baptiste, and Tris Coffin as Major Andrew Henry. Alderson played the historical trapper, Joseph Meek, in the earlier 1964 Death Valley Days episode "From the Earth, a Heritage." In that segment, a rival trapper, Peter Whitney pressures Meek to sell his beautiful Indian wife, Tula (Marianna Hill). Also he was in "An Organ for Brigham" (see B. Morrow).
• Armand Alzamora (1928–2009) played the Mexican–American outlaw Tiburcio Vásquez in the 1957 episode "The Last Bad Man." The segment focuses on Vasquez's early life of crime, his hatred for the Americans, his prison escape, and his hanging at the age of thirty-nine.
• John Anderson played George Kelsey, owner of the Round Tent—a saloon which became the town of Washington, CA's courthouse with Kelsey as judge. But a courthouse needs a jail; and that costs money! Robert Strauss, Laurie Mitchell and Dub Taylor help him in the path to legitimacy for "The Law of the Round Tent" (1963), with Walter Burke and Guy Wilkerson.
• Robert Anderson (1920–1996) was cast as General Philip Kearny. With Gerald Mohr as Andrés Pico and Will Kuluva as his brother "The Firebrand" (1965), Pío Pico, the episode is set in 1846; the enforcement of anti-Constitutional rule in California Territory by a bigoted Lieutenant Charles Cooper encourages Pío to stage a successful attack on Kearny; when Kearny greatly inflates the number of attackers, negotiator Andrés attempts to get a favorable treaty from Colonel Stockton, Gregg Barton, upon realizing Kearny would prefer further inflation to hide his failure.
• Warner Anderson played John Gaunt, a successful settler in Wyoming, in the 1960 episode, "The Strangers." Gaunt's successful farm is threatened when a mysterious drifter suddenly appears.
• Keith Andes was cast in the 1965 episode "Paid in Full" as Rob Hunter, a former colonel who goes to Texas to visit Kathy McLennan (Aneta Corsaut), the wife of a soldier who had been killed while serving under Hunter in the American Civil War. He discovers that McLennan and her neighboring ranchers have been defrauded by the cattle baron John Chisum (Michael Constantine), who issued legally unclaimable IOUs when he purchased their stock. Hunter works to recover the money owed to the ranchers, with Sheb Wooley.
• Tod Andrews was cast as Captain Lynn Parker in the 1960 episode, "Confederate Yankee." In the story line, Parker must break up a secret San Francisco ring financing the Confederate States of America. Elaine Devry was cast as Confederate spy Belle Waverly, and Gavin MacLeod portrayed Belle's fiancé, Dandy Martin, who shoots her to death because she developed romantic feelings for Captain Parker.
• Richard Angarola (1920–2008) was cast as the historical Comanche Quanah Parker in the 1959 episode "Tribal Justice." In the story line, Parker must clear his name for causing the death of a fellow tribesman before he can become the Comanche chief.
• Morris Ankrum appeared as Major Rogers in the 1959 episode "A Bullet for the Captain." In the story line, Rogers tries to determine who is smuggling weapons to nearby Indians. Ankrum was also cast as a rancher named Phillips in another 1959 segment, "The Talking Wire," the story of the difficulties encountered in establishing the first telephone system in California.
• Anna-Lisa played Huldah Swansen in 1966. In the story, she plays a young Swedish immigrant coming west to marry. The episode centers upon "The Hat That Huldah Wore" (1966) in which she had stored more than $1,300 to help get a start in her new life. Bennett, Tris Coffin, seemingly unnecessarily reveals its hiding place to robbers. Carl Reindel, and Dub Taylor also appear in this episode. Also she played Eleanor, wife of Agoston Haraszthy, "The Man who Planted Gold" (1970) (played by Richard Angarola). Harasthy is assisted in his dream by banker Chapman George Neise.
• R. G. Armstrong and Jason Evers appeared as Bundage and Dan Hardy, respectively. In the story line, U.S. President Zachary Taylor pushed for a tax on mines in California. Opponents led by Bundage declare "taxation without representation" and secede from the United States as the independent country of Rough and Ready, California. Hardy's weak acceptance of the new tyrants is challenged by 10-year-old Jamie Kevin Brodie and Hardy's pregnant wife Susan Flannery who wants the coming baby's "Birthright" (1965) to be free.
• John Ashley appeared in the 1961 episode "The Holdup-Proof Safe" as Sandy, a rodeo performer who wants to become a deputy sheriff so that he can marry his sweetheart, Katie Downs (Susan Crane). However, he is arrested for the theft of funds from the "holdup-proof" safe in the building of merchant Gus Lammerson (Regis Toomey). With Katie's aid, Sandy escapes from jail to find the real thieves.
• John Astin as Jesse Martin, a prospector who has been grub-staked by Lew Wallace (Harry Holcombe), pretends to find "The Gold Mine on Main Street" (1968). But how is he continuing to make it real; and are the 3 thieves after him claim-jumpers? Gregg Barton and Lita Baron also appeared in this episode.
• Tol Avery appeared five times on the series: as Frank Brenner in "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick," as Walter Benson in "Doc Holliday's Gold Bars" (both 1966), and in historical roles as Judge Sidney Edgerton of Montana Territory in "Lucia Darling and the Ostrich" and as the mayor of Caldwell, Kansas, in "The Restless Man" (both 1969).
• Richard Avonde (1914–1981) was cast as firefighter Philo Clark in the 1954 episode "Little Papeete," a reference to a special fire engine purchased by the community of Columbia, California, which had burned in 1853 and again in 1857. In the story line, Clark leads the effort to purchase the engine, but his girlfriend, Sue Pellet (Emily Heath), grows jealous of Philo's devotion to the machine.

B

• Parley Baer, popular character actor formerly a cast member of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet and The Andy Griffith Show, was cast in four Death Valley Days episodes. He portrayed Horace Greeley in the 1965 episode "The Great Turkey War." In the story line, Greeley, namesake of Greeley Colorado, is corroborating the presence of gold in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1859 and reports as a journalist on the difficult origin of the settlement of Denver, with rampant vandalism (the theft of turkeys) and murder. Greely's oration gives the sheriff (Don Haggerty then Pollack, Michael Constantine, the gumption to start the clean up of the town.
• Joby Baker was cast as a traveling magician, Dr. William Davis. Although Judi Meredith as Davis's dying wife encourages him to take a young orphan boy Tad, (Mark Anthony) on his travels across the West after her death, his reluctance to include him in "The Saga of Dr. Davis" (1967) is tested by marauding Indians.
• Ed Bakey (1925–1988) played the outlaw Sam Bass in the 1967 episode "The Informer Who Cried." In the story line, Jim Murphy (Scott Thomas) is about to be sentenced when Texas Ranger Captain Peak (Mark Tapscott) offers him freedom if he helps in the capture of Bass. A fellow gang member, Barnes (Steve Sandor), is suspicious when Murphy returns.
• Roy Barcroft, among seven appearances on the series, played the wagon master, Captain Shaw, in the 1958 episode "Head of the House," the story of the seven Sager orphans, who after the deaths of both parents, head for refuge to the Marcus Whitman mission in Walla Walla, Washington. They are assisted along the way by the famous frontier scout Kit Carson (Morgan Jones) (1928–2012). Harold Daye and Rickie Sorensen played the Sager sons, John and Frank, respectively.
• Claudia Barrett was cast as Lee Whipple in the 1959 episode, "Stagecoach Spy." In the story line, Lee rides the stagecoach to observe the movements of outlaws and to help in their identification. Brad Johnson played Sheriff Tom Fuller.
• Ernestine Barrier appeared as the vengeful matriarch, Dona Luisa Ortega, in the 1959 episode, "Perilous Refuge," set at the end of the Mexican–American War. Anthony George, Gregg Palmer, and Gloria Castillo were cast in this episode as Carlos Ortega, John Brewster, and Dolores Ortega, respectively.
• Charles Bateman played a deputy sheriff, Jim Brand, in Washoe County, Nevada, in the 1965 episode "The Wild West's Biggest Train Holdup." In the story line, Brand places a locked chain on a Central Pacific Railroad engine until the company agrees to pay its tax assessment. Roy Barcroft was cast as the aging Sheriff Jackson, with Pat Priest as his daughter, Nora, who is romantically interested in Brand. In 1966, Bateman as "The Hero of Apache Pass," Bernard J. D. Irwin, a US Army assistant surgeon and eventual winner of the Medal of Honor from the occasion when he rescues the detachment of George Nicholas Bascom, Dick Simmons who had been sent to rescue the son of a settler Michael Pate.
• John Beck played a young newspaperman, Sandy Peters, in the 1969 episode "Solomon's Glory." In the story line, a formerly successful journalist named Solomon (Willard Sage) has turned to liquor but is being sobered up by his former boss (Tyler McVey), as Solomon's sister arrives in town.
• Don Beddoe in 1954 played the bandit Black Bart, a poetry-writing, debonair former school teacher who turns to stagecoach robbery after his first holdup, a prank, pays handsomely. Wells Fargo & Co. detectives track him down through a laundry mark. He was also pursued by his landlady, Winona Webb (Helen Brown). He spent six years in the penitentiary, never to be heard from again.
• Ralph Bellamy was cast as the aging minister Daniel Quint in the 1962 episode "The Vintage Years." In the story line, a young woman whom Quint befriends on a stagecoach ride, Lorna Erickson (Merry Anders), sets him up to be robbed by her former paramour, Johnny Meadows (William Bryant) whom he defeats in a fistfight but is then saved by David J. Cook from being shot. Soon Lorna and Quint marry despite a large age difference.
• Mark Bennett, who had a limited acting career, was cast as the historical Abraham Curry, the "founding father" of Carson City, Nevada, in the 1956 episode "The Man Who'd Bet on Anything." Helen Gilbert (1915–1995), a former Miss Missouri, was cast as Mrs. Curry, who questions her husband's gambling habit.
• James Best, among four appearances on Death Valley Days, was cast as miner "Tiny" Stoker in the 1955 episode, "Million Dollar Wedding." In the story line, Stoker, in a bet with his cohorts, proposes marriage to a presumably plain woman in their community, Aggie Filene (played by Virginia Lee, an actress who lived from 1924 to 2008). Soon, though the couple falls madly in love and go on a worldwide honeymoon tour with proceeds from a gold strike that they had nearly forfeited. And Aggie returns to the mining camp as a beautiful woman. As Reuel Colt Gridley, a southern Democrat Unionist in 1863 who raised $275,000 by repeatedly auctioning off "The $275,000 sack of flour" (1962) to benefit the forerunner of the Red Cross is terrorized for it by the forerunner of the revenge bent terrorists Ku Klux Klan, the Golden Circle.[319]
• Paul Birch played transcontinental telegraph line layer Mike Walsh in the 1959 episode, "Hang 'Em High." In the story line, Walsh competes with a rival company to be the first to lay the telegraph. Then Confederate sympathizers attempt to sabotage the telegraph. Arthur Space was cast as Ben Hudson. Also as a rancher, his wife is killed by "The Red Ghost of Eagle Creek". Trevor Bardette played the no-nonsense sheriff whose careful planning brought down the killer.
• Robert Blake, at thirty-three, played "The Kid from Hell's Kitchen" (1966), Billy the Kid. The Kid is treated with dignity by John Tunstall (John Anderson); so when he is gunned down by the corrupt small, local government led by Lawrence Murphy, (Lane Bradford), Billy goes against the advice of Turnstall's partner, Alexander McSween (James Seay), and becomes the prime vigilante Regulator.
• John Bleifer, in the 1960 episode "One Man Tank," played a prospector, Dutch Charley Koehn, who failed at gold mining and instead bought a goat farm, on which he makes a gold strike. John Harmon was cast as Mike Shannon, who tries to evict Charley from the property. Charley's friend, Leo Harris (Dabbs Greer), tries to remedy the injustice Charley faces. Best was cast as Ruel Gridley in the 1962 Death Valley Days episode "The $275,000 Sack of Flour." In the story line, Gridley pays off a bet by donating a bag of flour to a fund for those wounded in the American Civil War.
• Joan Blondell as the widowed Lucy Tutaine in the 1963 episode "The Train and Lucy Tutaine" harasses the railroad represented by Abel, Noah Beery Jr., for compensation for allegedly causing the death of her cow.
• Lloyd Bochner played the author Robert Louis Stevenson with Susan Brown and Mark Anthony as his wife and stepson who are threatened by a bandit Lane Bradford, whose stolen treasure they found in the 1966 episode "Jolly Roger and Wells Fargo" directed by Denver Pyle.
• Eric Bond played Philip Adams in the 1957 episode "The Washington Elm." A Bostonian, Adams yearns to live in the Pacific Northwest and establishes a law office in Seattle, Washington, but his romantic interest, Janice Peabody (Havis Davenport) refuses to relocate. He takes with him a portion of the elm tree on the Harvard University campus and replants it at the University of Washington. Thirty years later, he returns to the Harvard campus to plant part of the Washington elm on the campus because the original tree was destroyed in a storm. A chance encounters with Janice, by then a widow, leads to a second chance at romance for the pair.
• Carol Booth (born 1941), in the 1969 episode "Lucia Darling and the Ostrich," played a teacher trying to establish a school in 1863 in the since ghost town of Bannack, Montana. In the story line, a masked sheriff (William Bryant) and his deputy (Jeff Morris) rob the stagecoach bringing Lucia to Montana and steal both gold and her textbooks. She sets out to prove the officers' guilt despite the reservations of both the town itself – hence the reference to "The Ostrich" in the sand in the title of the episode – and her uncle, Judge Sidney Edgerton (Tol Avery), who shortly thereafter became the first governor of the Montana Territory.
• William Boyett played respected settler Jim Hardwicke in the 1954 episode "11,000 Miners Can't Be Wrong." In the story line, Columbia is in competition with Sacramento to be the site of the California state capital. When he informs the sheriff (Glenn Strange) that he had killed a man in self-defense, Hardwicke is forced to stand trial. Because of political influence placed on the jury by a corrupt district attorney, Hardwicke was found guilty. His fiancée and his lawyer, Ed Barrett (Gordon Barnes), develop a bizarre scheme to free Hardwicke from the hangman's noose; Barrett steals from a safe in the local bank a petition fomented by the same DA with 11,000 signatures of persons who want Columbia to be the capital, rewrites the first page to call for a pardon for Hardwicke, and appeals to the governor, who is impressed that so many signed. The governor orders Hardwicke's release; but Columbia justly loses out to Sacramento. In another role, Boyett played Dr. Edward Wilson in the 1957 episode, "The Luck of the Irish." In the story line, while fighting an epidemic among the Paiute, Dr. Wilson encounters a young white woman, Kay Casey (Rosemarie Ace), who was taken by the Indians years earlier. When the doctor unites Kay with her large family, she leaves the Paiute and in time became Mrs. Wilson. John Sorrentino played the sympathetic Chief Red Cloud. In the 1955 episode, "The Mormon's Grindstone," Boyett played John Corwin, the friend of the new assayer in town, Murphy (Clark Howat), whom some of the miners believe is understating the value of the assays. Then Murphy reports that the sandstone in "The Mormon's Grindstone" assays much richer than any other ore around. With Harry Lauter as Cy Meeker and Hank Patterson as "Dad the blacksmith."
• Ray Boyle guest starred as Bruce Matthews, a young miner with claustrophobia, in the 1954 episode "Yaller."
• Lane Bradbury was cast as a young Eliza Stewart Udall at Pipe Spring in southern Utah in the 1969 episode "A Key for the Fort." In the story line, Miss Stewart, a Mormon pioneer, sends the first telegraph message from Arizona Territory and works with her Aunt Cora (Ivalou Redd) to find an innovative way to nurse an ill Ute chief, Black Wing (George Keymas), back to health. The episode also stars Gregg Palmer as Jacob. The episode was filmed at Pipe Spring National Monument.
• Lane Bradford played the historical Indian chief Sequoyah, the namesake of Sequoia National Park, in the 1954 episode "Sequoia." The segment covers Sequoyah from his earliest years to his development of the Cherokee alphabet. Carol Thurston and Angie Dickinson played Sali and Ayoka, respectively. Bradford played California pioneer Jim Savage in the 1959 episode "The Blonde King." A friend of the Indians, Savage works to stop a threat to the peace of the Yosemite Valley. Also as Caleb Greenwood, circumstances force him to commit to killing any member of his wagon team who shoots an Indian instead of parlaying with them including his own son, because it would be a "Simple Question of Justice" (1970), with Royal Dano and Veronica Cartwright.
• Jolene Brand portrayed "Indian Emily" in the 1959 episode of the same name. At the United States Army outpost, Fort Davis, Texas, Emily, an Apache captive, adopts the white man's ways but flees when a young officer, Tom Easton (Burt Metcalfe), whom she loves prepares to marry another. She returns to warn the fort of a pending Apache attack and dies after saving the fort of a gunshot wound fired in error. Meg Wyllie played Tom's compassionate mother, Mrs. Easton. A memorial has been erected at Fort Davis to honor the heroism of Indian Emily.
• Neville Brand was cast as John Wesley Hardin in the 1962 episode "Preacher with a Past." In his reformed role as a minister, Hardin faces a dilemma when Deke (Richard Devon) will expose his identity unless he helps break Herschel (Chris Robinson) out of jail. Roy Engel played Sheriff Smathers.
• David Brian played the Mormon figure Jacob Hamblin in the 1963 episode "The Peacemaker." In the story line, Hamblin works feverishly to hold the peace treaty with the Navajo after a white bigot murders some Indians who come onto his property. Bing Russell, Michael Pate, Don Haggerty, Valentin de Vargas and Richard Webb also appear in this episode.
• Paul Brinegar played prospector Sawbuck, in the episode "Solid Gold Cavity," filmed in Sedona, Arizona. Based on a true incident, Sawbuck saves the life of Dr. John Beers, a young dentist, on the trail to San Francisco, who is attacked and left for dead by two bandits, Roberto Contreras and Howard Caine. Dr. Beers (played by Thomas Peters) repays Sawbuck by using the prospector's gold to make him a set of gold teeth, a process Beers then patented. In "The Lady and the Sourdough," Brinegar plays a cantankerous cook who teams up with a gold miner, Tom Despo (Stanley Adams), until he meets a neighboring widow (Amzie Strickland). In 1969, Brinegar played the Death Valley pioneer Jimmy Dayton (died 1899) in the episode "Jimmy Dayton's Bonanza." In the story line, the aging rancher Dayton takes a saloon girl, played by Marilyn O'Connor, as his wife, but she has second thoughts after she learns that he has exaggerated his wealth. James Wainwright (1938–1999) co-stars as a cowboy who feigns an interest in Mrs. Dayton. The episode was released three days after the death of series host Robert Taylor.
• Real life father and son,Steve and Kevin Brodie, starred as dad Wylie and his son who may have been snookered by Chief Pitoot Jacques Aubuchon with a "Lucky White Cow" (1964) with Phyllis Coates as his wife with Denver Pyle who has no sympathy for a sucker.
• Susan Brown as Wilhelmina Vail in the 1970 episode, "Talk to Me, Charley"arrives to claim her late brother's gold mine, which is being protected from claim jumpers such as Taggert, Lane Bradford, by his friends Charley Gentry (Sean McClory) and Stokes LaFever (Hal Baylor), . Romance develops between Wilhelmina and Stokes, leaving Charley as the odd man out. Also see entry of Lloyd Bochner.
• Richard Bull was cast as Jeremy Hatcher in the 1970 episode, "Amos and the Black Bull." Amos Kolb, (Anthony Costello (1938–1983)), wants to marry Maggie (Heidi Vaughn), Hatcher's ward. Amos has been helping Hatcher's son Silas after Silas is caught by casino owner Wilson Joseph Perry cheating. But Hatcher still refuses permission unless Amos can demonstrate financial security; Amos' plan to trade a black bull for some Indian land might hinge on Silas' cheating.
• Red Buttons played Levi Strauss, the inventor of Levi jeans, in the 1960 episode "The Million Dollar Pants." Lisa Gaye and Ted Knight also appeared in this episode.

C

• James Caan and Roy Thinnes were cast as rovers Bob and Jim, respectively who manage to stay only in the "Shadow of Violence" (1963) after a disreputable towns' person catches them digging in a cemetery in a California town. Their "uncle" Woodson Hugh Sanders shows the tombstone they were planting that reveals them to be outlaw sons of a prominent local. Karyn Kupcinet played Julie. Caan also played wild Jim McKinney whose evil influence on his younger brother forced his father, Steve, R. G. Armstrong, to make the "Deadly Decision" (1963).
• Rory Calhoun played the legendary Arizona Ranger Burt Mossman in the 1963 episode "The Measure of a Man." In the story line, Mossman convinces a reluctant Burt Alvord (Bing Russell) to set a trap to catch the elusive bandit Augustine Chacon (Michael Pate). In the 1966 episode "Water Bringer" Calhoun played early California entrepreneur William A. Richardson, who arrives in the future San Francisco off the ship, the Orion commanded by Don Haggerty. Lita Baron was cast as Maria Martinez, the future Mrs. Richardson with Will Kuluva as Maria's father, Commandante Ygnacio Martinez. .
• Charles Carlson, who had a limited acting career from 1960 to 1967, was cast as Wild Bill Hickok in the 1962 episode "The Truth Teller," the story of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. Barney Phillips appeared as the historical General Winfield Scott Hancock.
• John Carradine in the 1961 episode "Miracle at Boot Hill," was cast as a stranger coming into a western town who falsely claims that he can resurrect the dead. His promise creates tension for Bill Groat (Peter Hansen), who is responsible for an unsolved murder.
• Conlan Carter as L. Frank Baum, the struggling newspaperman who created The Wizard of Oz, needs the Scarecrow's brains as "The Wizard of Aberdeen" (1970) to avoid a duel with Robert Sorrells demanded by the rich town bully Bill Zuckert.
• Anthony Caruso was cast as Buckskin Frank Leslie in the 1958 episode, "The Gunsmit." Robert Fuller was cast as gunsmith Alex. In the story line, Leslie comes to town to see his old flame Mary (Anita Gordon), Alex's fiancé who wants nothing to do with Leslie. In 1959, Caruso was cast as Cabrio, a self-proclaimed member of the powerful Black Hand, in the episode, "The Invaders."
• Kathleen Case was cast as Helen Crosby in the 1953 episode, "The Lady with the Blue Silk Umbrella." In the story line, Crosby hides the official California statehood documents from ruffians trying to steal them. Rick Vallin was cast as Lieutenant Bob Hastings. With Mark Dana (1920–2015) as gambler Brad Forrester and she as schoolteacher Ruth Stewart, they were "The Gambler and the Lady" (1958) who have persuaded heavyweight boxer John L. Sullivan (Roy Jenson)to come to a western town to fight an exposition match against the local Buck Jarrico (Hal Baylor); but the prize money earmarked for the school goes missing, and the 2 are falsely accused based on appearances.
• Jerome P. "Bill" Catchings (1926–2007), a western stunt performer, was cast as expert lumberjack Silas "Si" Seymour in the 1956 episode "Loggerheads." In the story line, Silas corresponds with flowery letters to Florence Aston (Camille Franklin), but both are illiterate. Each has a friend who is actually writing the letters; Vic Burke (Gregg Palmer) writes for Silas; Mrs. Perrin (Marjorie Bennett) does the same for Florence.
• Winnie Chandler (1900–1983) was cast as housekeeper Minnie in the 1958 episode "The Moving Out of Minnie." In the story line, rancher Herb Gulic (Don Kelly) (1924–1966) sends Minnie back to her tribe when he weds Henrietta (Karen Norris) (1927–1996). Then Henrietta's daughter, Carol (Larrian Gillespie), is stricken, and Gulic must try to bring Minnie back to care for her in an emergency. Chandler was also cast as "Ma" Carey in the 1959 episode "Pioneer Circus." When Ma's circus falls on hard economic times, she hires a French equestrian, Juliette Bonet (Joyce Vanderveen) (1927–2008), to reverse the decline.
• Stephen Chase (1902–1982) played the historic Sam Houston, with Nancy Rennick (1932–2006), as Houston's second and much younger wife, Margaret Lea Houston, in the 1958 episode "The Girl Who Walked with a Giant." The story focuses on Margaret's important role as a confidant of her husband from his days as president of the Republic of Texas to his time as governor, a post that he resigned in 1861 because he could not support seceding to the unconstitutional Confederate States of America. In "The Mystery of Suicide Gulch" (1958) as Colorado sheep rancher Ed Pratt, he disbelieves his son Loren (Lee Anthony), who loses a large number of sheep while on a drive. The culprit, as it developed, was a toxic plant on which the sheep had grazed. Chase was cast as a minister, Joshua Coleman, in the 1959 episode "Eruption at Volcano," a story not of an explosive volcano but a Confederate attempt to take over the community of Volcano, California. Brett Halsey played Coleman's son, Joel. The two join forces to thwart the dissidents.
• Chief Thundercloud appeared in the 1954 episode, "The Saint's Portrait", the story of a painting of Saint Joseph thought by a tribe and its covetous neighbor to be magical. However, the mission priest, Father Mariano (Martin Garralaga), reveals its deeper meaning. The episode also starred Rico Alaniz, George J. Lewis, and Eugenia Paul.
• Ken Clark was cast as the shanghaied sailor Joe Chapman "Yankee Pirate" (1958). In the story line, Mexican families in early California are beset by a group of pirates, but the Ortega family resists. Saved from execution by the Lupe Ortega (Pamela Duncan), the captured Joe Chapman shows himself a hard worker who falls in love with Lupe.
• Series regular Phyllis Coates co-starred in the first episode with regulars Brad Johnson (q.v.)and Guy Wilkerson. Later as a Civil War widow Mary, she is objectified by unwanted attention from Larry Brooks (Michael Forest), one of the "One in a Hundred" (1959) authorized the new Henry repeater rifle, who shows his "kill happy" side while he escorts pioneers across peaceful Indian country. In 1964, Coates was cast as the kind-hearted saloon singer Dora Hand of Dodge City, Kansas, in the episode entitled, "The Left Hand Is Damned." In the story line, Dora nurses an ungrateful gunslinger, Slim Kennedy (Peter Haskell), back to health after he is shot by Dora's boss, Mayor James H. Kelley (Stephen Roberts), in self-defense. Having lost the use of his right hand, Crawford vows to kill Kelley so he tries unsuccessfully to develop fast draw skills with his left hand. With his failure, he decides to bushwack Kelley through his window not knowing Kelley is away. In 1954, Coates was cast as Annie Stewart in the episode, "Light on the Mountain," set in the early 1860s during the time of Nevada statehood. In a trial concerning mining claims and Civil War allegiances, lawyers Richard Corey (Glase Lohman) and William M. Stewart (Michael Colgan), Annie's husband, must prove that the judge and jury have been bribed to rid the courts of corruption. Angie Dickinson played Annie's friend, Sabina Harris.
• James Coburn played Captain Steve Barnes, who has requisitioned "Pamela's Oxen" (1958) from Pamela Mann, Ida Lupino, for Sam Houston's army for the winter. The episode also starred James Callahan as Private Riggs and Robert Sorrells as Fergus.
• Steve Cochran played priest Father Montague who has been trying to bring concern for one's fellow man in "The Westside of Heaven" (1963), Virginia City, when he must decide whether to sacrifice his own church for that concern, with John McLiam.
• Harry Cody (1896–1956) played the aging prospector and Death Valley pioneer Jimmy Dayton in the 1954 episode, "Jimmy Dayton's Treasure." Barbara Knudson played saloon singer Flory Wilkins, who is breaking up with a former paramour, Thad Ryeker (Harry Lauter). She agrees to marry Jimmy because she thinks he has money hidden on the ranch of which he is the caretaker. Her change of heart led to Jimmy and Flory reconciling their differences. Cody died two years after the release of this episode.
• Robert Colbert was cast as Andy Carter, a pioneer who retrieves for sale cast-off items from wagon trains, in the 1964 episode "A Bargain Is for Keeping." Sue Randall played Mary Ann Duncan, who finds a missing family heirloom among Carter's goods. He insists that she work for him to gain possession. Karl Swenson was cast as Abe Hughes. He also appeared as Yank Van Duysen who was about leave town since the mine owner wouldn't heed his warnings; the result is he enters "The Grotto of Death" (1963). With Elisha Cook Jr. Also as Tombstone's sheriff Ray Ritter, he has a dilemma when his wife, Victoria Shaw, wants him to quit rather than enforce the claim of card shark,"The Duke of Tombstone" (1970), to half the town which he cheated from Spunky Guy Wilkerson. With Tris Coffin.
• Don Collier and Jan Clayton were cast as Josiah Wilbarger and his terminally ill sister, Margaret, in the 1967 episode "The Man Who Wouldn't Die." Wilbarger, a native of Virginia, lived for eleven years after being scalped by the Comanche. Wilbarger County, Texas, is named in his honor. (With Paul Fix and Harry Lauter.) Also cast as Frank Dalton in the 1964 episode "There Was Another Dalton Brother" is starting his job as a deputy U.S. Marshal; Dalton must question Frank Johnson, a suspect in a missing persons case. Johnson is the father of Dalton's girlfriend, Emmy Johnson (Laura Shelton) . Strother Martin was cast in this episode as Charlie Neel. Robert Anderson played Marshal Heck Thomas.
• Ben Cooper appeared as Jason Tugwell in the unusually named 1969 episode "Biscuits and Billy, the Kid," no relation to the American outlaw but the story of a pioneer family deserted by a wagon train en route to Utah. Erin Moran was cast as their young daughter, Mary, who is ill with a high fever. They survived the threat of Indians by the popularity of the biscuits of Mrs. Ellie Tugwell (Emily Banks) and their dainty blue-eyed white goat called Billy. Michael Hinn (1913–1988) appeared near the end of the episode as the Mormon figure Brigham Young preaching peace on the frontier.
• Jeanne Cooper was cast as pioneer woman Rachel Barrett in the 1969 episode "A Gift." In the story line, Rachel pleads with an Indian chief (Valentin de Vargas) to spare the lives of her husband and son, played by Harry Lauter and Michael Courtney, respectively, as the family waits on an approaching wagon train. Cooper also played Ann Dix in the 1955 episode "I Am Joaquin." In the story line, Ann searches with ultimate success for eight years for the return of her young daughter whom the Mexican bandt Joaquin Murrieta left at a Roman Catholic church after he boarded a ship and stabbed to death the girl's father, Capt. Stephen Dix, played by John Damler (1919–1984). Much earlier, in 1954, Cooper was cast as Susie Jarvis in the episode, "Sixth Sense." Susie is unable to adjust to her blindness until she meets Steve McIntyre (William Hudson), who encourages her to learn telegraphy. She witnesses a stage robbery; her heightened senses play a key role in solving the crime.
• Lloyd Corrigan was cast as the lucky hobo, Carl Herman, in the 1960 episode "Money to Burn." Helen Kleeb played a recipient of Herman's largess. Paul Sorensen and William Boyett played the thieves whose $50,000 worth of loot Herman found and then gave away. In 1962, Corrigan was cast as Dorsey Bilger, the bearer of tall tales in Totem, Idaho. In the story line, the townspeople no longer valued Dorsey's "fairy tales"he tells the children instead giving him "A Sponge Full of Vinegar"; but he dies a hero rescuing trapped children from the clutches of a gunslinger, Charlie Winslow (Chris Alcaide). This episode also featured Paul Birch as Sheriff Lick.
• Jerome Courtland was cast as newspaperman William Byers in the episode "The Race at Cherry Creek." In the story line, Byers races against time to put out the first newspaper in the Colorado Territory during the gold rush year of 1859. His Rocky Mountain News became the first publication in the territory. Though strongly encouraged in the pursuit by his wife Elizabeth (Nancy Rennick), Byers' pressman, Andy Kate (Alvy Moore), is pessimistic about their chances of publishing first.
• Dennis Cross appeared three times in the episodes "Treasure of Elk Creek Canyon" (1961), as the Indian Captain Dick in "Captain Dick Mine," and "The Rider" (both 1965).
• Joel Crothers was cast in the 1960 episode, "3-7-77," as young Jim Badger, who tangles with corrupt lawmen and vigilantes in Alder Gulch, Montana Territory. The episode title refers to the unknown secret code of the vigilantes.
• Kathleen Crowley appeared as Elizabeth Hayward in "Somewhere beyond the Vultures" (1959).
• Robert Culp was cast as the accused robber and killer James Stuart in the 1961 episode, "Alias James Stuart." The episode focuses on mistaken identity: whether this Stuart, who claims to be honest citizen Tom Burdue, knifed to death a storekeeper named Jansen. Eleanor Berry (1906–1991) was cast as Mrs. Stuart, who can identify her abusive but charismatic husband with John Zaremba as the trial judge.
• Ken Curtis appeared as a muleskinner, James "Paddy" Graydon (1832–1862), in the 1964 episode "Graydon's Charge," a dramatization of one of the last clashes of the American Civil War in New Mexico Territory. In the story line, the Union Army plans an attack against a Confederate camp. Denver Pyle played Graydon's partner, Ortho Williams. They two eye the attention of a widow (Cathy Lewis) and seek to show their courage to win her hand. Graydon agrees with reluctance to send his mules, laden with dynamite into the rival camp. The episode is semi-comedic. Graydon's story is the subject of the 1992 book, Captain Paddy Graydon: Desert Tiger, by the historian Jerry D. Thompson.

D

• Marcel Dalio played Victor Rosseau in the 1960 episode, "The Battle of Mokolumne Hill," with Roy Engel as Colonel John Charles Fremont. In the story line, Lieutenant Bill Bradshaw (Dallas Mitchell) is ordered to collect California state taxes in the 1850s from immigrant gold miners who rebel against the government thought Bradshaw is sympathetic to the miners. H. M. Wynant was cast as Paul Martain.
• Jack Daly (1914–1968) and Ella Ethridge (1893–1982) played a married couple, Henry and Elvira Riggs, in the 1955 episode, '"Riggs and Riggs." In the story line, after a gold strike, the couple sells the claim for $70,000. Elvira worked much harder in prospecting than did Henry, who went to San Francisco to arrange the transfer of payment. Then Henry cavalierly takes off with a shady sea captain, Gene Roth to visit various Pacific islands. Though he loses their fortune, the crafty Elvira has a replacement strike looming which she had been working.
• Royal Dano was cast as the historical Henderson Luelling in the 1965 episode, "The Traveling Trees." In the story line, Luelling, against the advice of his wagon master, takes the Hastings Cutoff to Oregon, where he intends to plant an apple orchard. Tim McIntire appeared as Ben Fraser, who resists the lawlessness of his older brother, Spencer (Robert Yuro). Dano also appeared in four other Death Valley Days episodes; in another 1965 segment he had to overcome "The Trouble with Taxes," bandits on the road to the tax collector, in the role of Aaron Winters, founder of the Death Valley borax strike, with Sheb Wooley, Angela Clarke and Charles Fredericks.
• Michael Dante appeared as Captain Richard Rocha in "Olvera" (1959). Ten years later, he was cast as the ill-fated half-breed Clay Squires, with Robert Taylor as Ben Cotterman and June Dayton as Cotterman's wife, Rachel, in the 1969 episode, "Long Night at Fort Lonely."
• Christopher Dark appeared in the 1960 episode, "Human Sacrifice," as Washaki, the designated heir to the chieftainship of the Shoshone. In the story line, Julia (Arlene Martel), the young widow of a fallen chief, fights an ancient ritual that requires her to be killed after the death of her husband.
• James Davidson played boxer James J. Corbett in the 1966 episode, "The Fight San Francisco Never Forgot." John McLiam played Corbett's Olympic Club trainer and promotional rival, Walter Watson.
• Alexander Davion, a French actor born in 1929, played Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia in the 1959 episode "The Grand Duke." John Lupton was cast as William F. Cody. In the story line, Cody acts as guide for the Grand Duke who is on a western bison hunt. The two develop a close friendship. Davion was also cast as storekeeper Mitchell Hobart in the 1961 episode, "Loophole." In the story line, Hobart uses another loophole against Claypool (Bruce Gordon) into having to sign back the deed to a Nevada mine which Claypool has swindled from Hobart's friend, Jebal McSween (Arthur Shields).
• Gail Davis appeared in two episodes, "The Little Bullfrog Nugget" (1952), in which she played Mamie Jaggers, the only single woman in Bulldog, Nevada, where she had to contend with several suitors, Then in 1953, Davis was cast in "Land of the Free" in the role of Jerrie Cabell. Davis would go on to star in her own western series, Annie Oakley.
• Jim Davis, later Jock Ewing on CBS's Dallas, portrayed Mark Tabor, a U.S. representative from Nevada in the 1953 episode, "Little Washington," set in 1878 in Carson City. This was the first of Davis's thirteen appearances on Death Valley Days. He portrayed Grat Dalton in the 1963 episode, "Three Minutes to Eternity," about the simultaneous and last bank robberies carried out in Coffeyville, Kansas, by the Dalton Gang. Davis played a wagon master, Ezra Meeker, abandoned by members of his wagon train who decided to stop the trip to Oregon instead to prospect for gold in the 1965 episode "Devil's Gate." In 1967, he played freighter Luke Campbell of Deadwood, South Dakota, in the episode, "The Day They Stole the Salamander," a reference to a Salamander Safe. In 1969, Davis played Colonel William G. Butler (1831–1912), who takes revenge on the later ghost town of Helena, Texas, after its citizens refuse to disclose the killer of Butler's son, Emmett. Butler arranges for the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway to bypass Helena; instead Karnes City, south of San Antonio, became the seat of government of Karnes County. In a 1964 appearance Davis played Wyatt Earp, with John Clarke and Jeff Morris as his brothers, Virgil and Morgan Earp, respectively. William Tannen, Dan Stafford, Bradley Stewart (1924–1995) and Susan Seaforth were cast as Ike Clanton, Doc Holliday, Curly Bill Brocius and Virgil's wife, respectively. It focused on events, "After the OK Corral," the gunfight on October 26, 1881 .
• Dennis Day was cast in the 1962 episode "Way Station" as Jason Barnes, an ambitious railroad employee who is romancing the daughter, Cynthia Waterfield (Theona Bryant), of his boss, Clay Waterfield (Frank Wilcox). Merry Anders portrayed Abby Jefferson.
• June Dayton was cast as a nun, Sister Mary Frances, in the 1960 episode "The Wind at Your Back." In the story line, the nun tries to convince a young wounded outlaw, Johnny Carter (Steven Terrell), whom she is treating at a mission school to turn himself into the law. Also as Miss Lucinda, she loves a ne'er-do-well John McLiam whom she cuts off from her pies. Two of her friends egg Henry George Nieise to help him find "A Solid Gold Pie"(1970).
• Rosemary DeCamp played newspaper editor Caroline Romney of Durango, Colorado, in the 1965 episode "Mrs. Romney and the Outlaws." In the story line, the woman editor sounds the alarm for citizens to fight the Kimball/Starr gang. Willard Sage played Marshal Christy. In the 1965 episode "Canary Harris v. the Almighty," DeCamp played Canary Harris, a widow who sues her church after a meteorite destroys her front porch. She bases her claim on the premise that God unjustly caused or allowed her calamity to occur. After the congregation and Reverend Medford Farr (Robert O. Cornthwaite) reject her claim, she files an appeal to his bishop (Cyril Delevanti). Peggy Rea (pre-The Waltons) was cast as Canary's friend, Lucy.
• Yvonne De Carlo played the title role of Clare Reed in the 1961 episode, "The Lady Was an M.D.," set in the 1890s. John Vivyan was cast as Ed Taylor, her suitor, who devised a most unusual and risky plan to convince people to accept Dr. Reed.
• Mason Alan Dinehart was cast as Greg in the 1959 episode, "Half a Loaf." In the story line, Greg inherits a race horse, Squire, that saves the fortune of him and his partner, Dawson (Bob Steele, who were swindled by Murdoch (Mauritz Hugo). Richard Crane played Monte.
• Paul Donovan, who acted only from 1957 to 1958, played a youthful Mark Twain in the 1957 episode, "Fifteen Paces to Fame." In the story line, Twain in 1864 quarrels with a rival newspaperman in the Comstock Lode, Ganse Taylor (Doug McClure), fights a duel, and leaves Nevada for good to begin the long journey to literary success.
• James Douglas was cast as Steve Hewitt, a man who accidentally shoots to death the rescuing dogs of a miner, in the 1960 episode "Dogs of the Mist."
• James Drury, pre-The Virginian, was cast in the 1959 episode "Ten Feet of Nothing" as a young miner, Joe Plato, who in a drunken stupor gives away half of his Virginia City mining claim to a saloon singer, Kathy Mulqueen (Preshy Marker). Kathy arrives to collect on her interest in the mine when gold is discovered on the adjacent property. Soon the two fall in love and marry. Hank Patterson was cast as Plato's friend, Abe.
• Pamela Duncan was cast as Princess Nadja in the 1959 episode, "RX: Slow Death." William Sumner played apothecary Justin Gates, who exposes Nadja's employer, Professor Peacock (Charles Watts) (1912–1966), a traveling medicine man selling an opium-laced concoction that endangered the life of a boy in the community.

E

• James Edwards appeared as "The Other White Man" (1964), a slave, Scipio Gaines, who had run away before the Emancipation Proclamation, didn't know of it and had lived among the Dakota. In 1875, when Dr. Ransome Don Haggerty was sent in to try to avert war with the various Sioux tribes, a Dakota woman Lisa Gaye persuades Gaines to seemingly surrender his freedom to help. With Rodolfo Acosta, Valentin de Vargas and Roy Engel.
• Penny Edwards appeared as Nan Gable in the 1958 episode, "Two-Gun Nan," the story of a woman sharpshooter affiliated with William F. Cody's Wild West Show. Nan sets out on a daring 180-day thoroughbred horse ride from San Francisco to New York City to prove that a woman could undertake such a task. Robert "Buzz" Henry (1931–1971) played her husband, Frank Gable, and William O'Neal (1898–1961) was cast as Cody. Still living in 1958, Nan Gable appeared with series host Stanley Andrews at the conclusion of the episode.
• Jack Elam was cast as Juan Cortina in the 1961 episode, "General Without a Cause." In the story line, Cortina, a Mexican rancher, outlaw, and folk hero, captures the gravely wounded Miles Owen (William Boyett) and Owen's guide, Delores (Lisa Gaye). Cortina expects to use Owen's wagon of guns for the resistance to the invading French troops. Despite his wounds, Owen conceals the location of the wagon and its water with hope against hope to convince Cortina to give up his outlaw ways and instead to work to save his country.
• Ann Elder as Annette Morrow turns around to leave the wagon train led by her father, Roy Engel, to help Jason Howard, Walter Brooke and his pregnant wife, Aneta Corsaut, save his dream, an amphibious wagon for "Dry Water Sailors" (1965)
• Ross Elliott played lawyer Temple Houston, son of Sam Houston, in the 1959 episode, "The Reluctant Gun," some four years before Jeffrey Hunter played the part in the NBC television western series, Temple Houston. In the story line, Houston is called upon to defend Billy Jackson Alan Reed Jr., an artistic young man who shoots in the back a gunslinger who threatened him. Don C. Harvey was cast as a sheriff; Robert Sorrells had an uncredited speaking role.
• Hope Emerson appeared as "Big Liz" Barton, a miner who strikes it rich, in the 1958 episode of the same name. Percy Helton played her partner, Scrubby.
• Michael Emmet (1926–2009) portrayed Captain Owen Manners in the 1959 episode, "A Bullet for the Captain." In the story line, Manners must prove that a friend, Fred Pierson (John Parrish) (1896–1988), is not supplying ammunition to hostile Indians. The .50 caliber rifles under question become chronically short of ammunition.
• Richard Emory played "The Death Valley Kid,"(1952) a nervy bank robber with a seeming grudge against Sheriff Jim Manning Bruce Edwards. But what grudge could the Kid have against upstanding Jim Manning? Ann McCrea, as saloon singer Lucy, has a romantic interest in Manning but wonders what moves a thief.
• Roy Engel appeared as Colonel Henry B. Carrington in "Old Gabe" (1958) and as John C. Fremont in two other episodes, "Olvera" (1959) and "The Gentle Sword" (1960). He was cast too as Brigadier General Philip Kearny in the 1962 episode, "Las Tules," about the American occupation of Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory.
• Jena Engstrom was cast as Maggie Woolf in the 1961 episode, "Storm over Truckeee." In the story line, Maggie and her father (Frederick Downs, Jr.), while headed to Truckee, California, take refuge in an abandoned cabin during a storm, but two outlaws, played by Corey Allen and George Keemas, arrive there as well.
• John Ericson as Idaho state senator, Axel Kaline, tries to inspire the settlers to stay so his hopes for "The Thirty Caliber Town" (1967) (now Winchester, Idaho) are to be realized. With Aron Kincaid, Willard Sage, Chubby Johnson, Don Megowan and Robert Sorrells.
• Gene Evans was cast as the historical Winfield Scott Stratton, a miner in Colorado, in the 1964 episode, "Sixty-seven Miles of Gold." James Best and Jack Albertson played Jimmy Burns and Pearlman, respectively. In the story line, Stratton strikes it rich as he signs his mining claim to a syndicate.

F

• Paul Fix, six years after The Rifleman ended its run on ABC, played the hardy, cantankerous pioneer, James Briton "Brit" Bailey, with Rosemary DeCamp as his equally defiant wife, Hannah, in the 1969 episode, "Here Stands Bailey." In the story line, the Baileys are ordered off their land at what is now Bailey's Prairie, Texas, by Stephen F. Austin (John Carter), who is bringing the Old Three Hundred original settlers to the area. Austin has a change of heart and asks the Baileys to stay. Bailey dies with his final wish of interment standing upright facing west, hence his grave marker, "Here Stands Bailey Facing West."
• Harry Fleer was cast as Wyatt Earp in the 1957 episode, "Birth of a Boom." In the story line, prospector Jim Butler (Roy Bancroft) strikes a rich vein in Tonopah, Nevada, in 1900, which makes him and his partners, Johnny Regan (Joel Smith) and Tasker Oddie (Byron Keith), wealthy. The prospectors enlist Earp to stop claim jumping.
• Rhonda Fleming was cast as the femme fatale Kitty Bolton. In the story line, the rejected manipulative Kitty cauaes a "Loss of faith" (1962) in Joe Phy (Jim Davis) against best friend Sheriff Peter Gabriel (Don Collier), grieving for his fiancée whose love of true relationships has alerted him to Kitty's manipulation of Joe in particular, who is incited to run for sheriff of Pima County, Arizona. But as in recent elections, the majority of the men voters listened to the women who better recognized evil intended manipulation from her school days, and she incites violence.
• Benson Fong played Sam Kee in "Sam Kee and Uncle Sam." In the story line, Kee, a Chinese man, is being driven out of the United States in a congressionally-sanctioned racial ethnic cleansing when he saves a cavalryman who is being attacked by Apache and eventually aids the entire fort. The commander, Lieutenant Burke (James Douglas) (1929–2016) knows better than to "obey orders" by continuing with Sam's deportation.
• Dick Foran played muleskinner Ferguson, with William Schallert as his partner, Dave Mesier, in the 1961 episode "The Breaking Point." In the story line Shad Cullen (DeForest Kelley), Meiser's partner in a gold mine, knows that Ferguson and Mesier have discovered. Not wanting to share the gold, Cllen foments probably fatal discord. Grace Lee Whitney was cast as Verna. See Penny Singleton's entry for "Holy Terror".
• Wallace Ford and Irene Barton were cast as cantankerous rival miners, Buck Hansen and Jennie Parrish, in the 1953 episode, "Claim Jumping Jennie." When Jennie's daughter Linda (Karen Sharpe), educated in the East, visits her mother for the first time in seven years, Linda learns that her mother has not yet struck wealth though she had pretended to have done so in their letters. The episode ends with a partnership between Buck and Jennie to work their neighboring mines.
• Steve Forrest played "The Lion of Idaho" (1963) who would become U.S. Senator William Borah. In the story line, adrenaline junkie Borah is a young attorney who defends a woman in Nampa, Idaho, on a murder charge. with comic relief J. Pat O'Malley. In the 1964 episode, "See the Elephant and Hear the Owl," Forrest played a down-and-out cowboy, Jack Costello, who is smitten with Julie Stedman (Sue Randall), the daughter of the wealthy cattle baron Col. Stedman (Roy Roberts), who tries to destroy Costello with Dick Foran as Sheriff Bannerman who has a long memory.
• Ron Foster appeared as Silas Begg in the 1957 episode, "Rough and Ready."
• Douglas Fowley, as "Cap'n Peg Leg" (1960), shoots in the back a number of men, including Charlie Tetlow and John Starkweather, played by William Schallert and Paul Burke, respectively, whom he blames for causing him to lose a leg. Jerry Paris was cast as Brian Brophy.
• Anne Francis, as the outlaw Pearl Hart, persuades her reluctant boyfriend, Joe Boot, Jesse Pearson to stage "The Last Stagecoach Robbery" (aired 1964) in 1899 just to be famous. The robbery between Globe and Florence in the Arizona Territory is the last there but their incompetence, the stagecoach driver, Woodrow Chambliss, and the sheriff, Bill Zuckert, foil the plan. The territorial governor pardoned Hart in 1902 on the condition that she leave Arizona.
• James Franciscus and Mary Webster appeared as Mike Ward and Laura Frick, competing newspaper editors in Carson City in the 1959 episode "Lady of the Press." Don Beddoe was cast as a newspaper magnate and senatorial candidate, Colonel Emmett.
• David Frankham was cast as a British sailor Edward Peel in the 1958 episode, "Ship of No Return." In the story line, Peel loves Manuela Cortez (Nyra Monsour), whose father (Jan Arvan) disapproves of him and has him shanghaied on a pearl-gathering ship. But Peel soon returns to claim his bride along with pearls owned by Senor Cortez.
• Arthur Franz was cast in the 1960 episode, "The Young Gun," as Matt Warner, an ex-convict who tries to steer the son, Rex (David Howe), whom he gave up for adoption, from turning to a life of crime. Franz then appeared in the 1961 episode, "Justice at Jackson Creek" as the drunken, ostracized lawyer Paine Page Prim, who hesitates to help a miner in legal trouble. The episode also stars Dub Taylor as Jake; William Schallert as Carl Spenger, and Bill Bixby as Kinney. Prim subsequently established a law practice and served for two decades as the chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court.
• Charles Fredericks was cast as Marshal Heck Thomas in the 1960 episode, "A Wedding Dress." Brad Johnson played Marshal Bill Tilghman, who in the story line is in pursuit of the Doolin gang in the Oklahoma Territory. J. Pat O'Malley was cast as Horace Capshaw and Mary Webster as Mrs. Tilghman.
• Gil Frye (1918–2000) was cast as Peter Trumble in the fourth episode of the series, "The Lost Pegleg Mine." In the story line, Trumble clashes with Jeanne DeCourcey (Gloria Eaton) as thye search c. 1950 for the Lost Pegleg in the Death Valley country. The two put aside their differences and agreed to marry. Ralph Sanford played Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith, the founder of the mine. Andy Clyde appeared as the durable ranch hand, Andy. Frye portrayed Father Miguel Sanchez in another 1953 episode, "The Bell of San Gabriel." As a child portrayed by Peter J. Votrian, Miguel provides funds acquired from a wealthy nobleman to sweeten the tone of the bell at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in San Gabriel, California. Years later, the ring of the bell saves his life when he is a young monk stranded in the desert in the Death Valley country.
• Robert Fuller, more than a year before he began his role as Jess Harper on NBC's Laramie, was cast in the 1958 episode, "Ten in Texas" as Johnny Santos, an accused rustler who is on trial for having changed brands and seizing cattle from the historic XIT Ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Harry Strang and Ray Corrigan played, respectively, XIT general manager B. H. "Barbecue" Campbell and Abner Pickens "Ab" Blocker (1856–1943), the developer of the XIT brand. The year before, Fuller appeared in "The Gunsmith."

G

• Parker Garvie was cast in a 1956 episode as "Emperor" Joshua Norton, a businessman who loses his fortune and becomes an eccentric in San Francisco in the 1860s. He declared himself "Emperor of Mexico." His compatriots treat his claims with kindness until his death.
• Lisa Gaye plays the widowed Faith Turner who places a sign seeking a husband and a father for her young son in the 1965 episode "The Rider." Jesse Pearson was cast as mail express rider Jim Barnes, who tries to help her find a suitable mate. As "The Gypsy", (1966)a fortune-teller in Julesburg, Colorado she predicts 2 men's deaths. Dennis Cross plays an evil man who tries to cash in by helping the second prediction also come true by murdering a disbelieving miner named Gross (Bill Zuckert). In 1968, Gaye played the gambler-turned-Sunday school-teacher Lottie Deno in the episode "Lottie's Legacy." In the dramatization, Lottie falls in love with the Reverend Peter Green (John Clarke), who does not know the details of her past. As Rosie Winters she has trouble adjusting to isolation in the Death Valley country with only her husband, Aaron, Royal Dano until Aaron's friend Ben, Chubby Johnson, alerts them that "Green is the Color of Gold" (1968) And when 2 white men murder her husband, Captain Dick, for "The Captain Dick Mine" (1965), she works for justice.
• Anthony George played Vincente Rosetti in "The Invaders," the story of Italian immigrant refugees in the Old West who face threats from that same organized crime ring that they had in their old country. George was cast too as Carlos in "Perilous Refuge." Both episodes aired in 1959.
• Frank Gerstle appeared as the villain Sam Walton in "The Mule Mail" and as Charley Parkhurst in "Cockeyed Charlie Parkhurst" (both 1958). Parkhurst was a woman posing as a man who became a horse expert and model driver for Wells Fargo & Co. in California. The title refers to the loss of an eye in an accident. Michael Whalen played Thomas Carter, Charley's boss.
• George Gobel appeared as Baylor Thomas, a visionary who accepts a bet from Singer, Parley Baer, and Ackerman, Don Haggerty, that he can't get to Council Grove and back in 2 weeks; he's assisted by blacksmith Alvy Moore who believes Thomas can develop the use of wind power for moving wagons west, in the 1963 episode, "Thar She Blows." But can he catch up to his ex-fiancée Evans Evans?
• James Griffith appeared as Aaron Winters and Donna Martell as his wife Rosie in the 1952 episode, "She Burns Green." In the story line, the Winterses are in the midst of ending their marriage while prospecting unsuccessfully for gold in the California desert. They learn of a strike for the needed mineral borax (which one can identify when "She burns green"). Hank Patterson appeared in this episode as Fye Jones.

H

• Ron Hagerthy, formerly the nephew Clipper on Sky King, appeared as Felix Bridger, son of Jim Bridger (Harry Shannon), in the 1958 episode, "Old Gabe." In the story line, Jim Bridger, despite failing eyesight, takes one last assignment as a scout so that he can raise money to pay off the family farm.
• Don Haggerty, among multiple roles, played Horace Tabor in the 1967 episode, "Chicken Bill," with Dub Taylor in the title role of the Colorado silver miner "Chicken Bill" Lovell. In the story line, Lovell salts his mine to get Tabor to pay off Lovell's lingering debt and to fund his continued operation. In the 1969 episode, "Old Stape," Haggerty played an eccentric thief who outwits lawmen from his rundown shack along the border of the United States and the Republic of Texas. As the mayor/newspaper publisher of Deadwood, SD, he starts "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick", Denver Pyle, q.v. (1966).
• Alan Hale was cast as stagecoach driver Abe Williamson, who pursues the murderous Reynolds Brothers, played by Dennis Cross and John Considine, in the 1961 episode, "The Treasure of Elk Creek Canyon." The thieves in this case stole only the fifteen cents that Williamson had in his possession.
• Nancy Hale, an actress from 1952 to 1969, was cast as Mary Jane in the 1958 episode, "The Capture," the story of the two Babb children, Betsy (Molly McGowan) (1946–1965) and Charlie (Earl Roby) (1946–2010), kidnapped by the Comanche in Texas. With vital help from Keepo-Kiowa (Irene Barton), a white woman captured years earlier by Kiowa Indians, Mary Jane arranges the children's successful rescue.
• Luke Halpin (who played Sandy Ricks in the films, Flipper (1963) and Flipper's New Adventure (1964), and Flipper (television series), played the role of Sandy King, the youngest member of the "Curly Bill" Brocius outlaw gang in the 1968 episode, "A Mule ... Like the Army's Mule."
• James Hampton, later of F Troop and The Doris Day Show, played publisher William Randolph Hearst in the 1964 episode, "The Paper Dynasty." James Lanphier (1920–1969) was cast as Ambrose Bierce. In the story line, Hearst struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner. Robert O. Cornthwaite appears as Sam Chamberlain; Barry Kelley as George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst.
• Brett Halsey appeared as Joel, the son of a minister, Joshua Coleman (Stephen Chase) in the 1959 episode, "Eruption in Volcano."
• Peter Hansen played Dr. Allen Camden in the 1961 episode, "Dead Man's Tale." In the story line, a beautiful woman, Bella Robbins (Valerie Starrett) passes over Dr. Camden for the store owner, Grant (Russell Johnson). Then a survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn played by John Milford comes looking for revenge on Grant, who had been selling government food meant for the Indians. Hansen sees his chance to right a wrong while winning Bella's hand.
• Mariette Hartley appeared four times between 1965 and 1968. As Catholic nun, Sister Blandina, in the 1967 episode, "Lost Sheep in Trinidad", she tries but fails to nurse Montana Joe,(Matt Clark) an associate of Billy the Kid, (Tom Heaton (1940–2018))back to health, as the town was using him as bait for Billy. Hartley was cast as "Tiger Lil" in the 1968 episode, "Lady with a Past," the story of young woman who leaves the dance hall to become a dressmaker in search of anonymity. Host Robert Taylor played Frank Johnson, a mining engineer with a romantic interest in Tiger Lil. Earlier in 1952, Tracey Roberts (1914–2002) was cast in the same role in "The Little Dressmaker of Bodie," with Myron Healey as her once reluctant suitor, Frank Johnson. As pioneer woman Cynthia Fallon, she yearns for a "Dress for a Desert Girl,"(1968), the money for which her miner husband, Zeb (Richard Beymer) has after a big strike but loses to a Micky Finn . In 1965 as Jessica Scott and husband Hugh Scott Ken Scott, in a mishap for a cart train led by Nate Donaldson Roy Engel and his wife Aneta Corsaut, are forced to find their son wrapped in "The Red Shawl".
• Raymond Hatton was cast as Porphyry Smith, who brings the first automobile into the Mojave Desert, in the 1958 episode "Auto Intoxication." Elizabeth Slifer (1896–1958), who died ten months after the episode aired, played his wife, Tildy, who requests the vehicle after he pockets $4,000 from a mining claim. Unknown to Porphyry, the vehicle is intended for use as a hearse. Though he rescued many in a flood, his compatriots ridiculed his choice of a vehicle. The taunts caused him to destroy the hearse by pushing it over a cliff.
• Allison Hayes was cast as Mary Granger, a pioneer woman engineer who comes West in the 1957 episode "Lady Engineer." In the story line, Granger, the daughter of a mining company owner, must prove her worth to overcome discrimination in her profession. Gregg Palmer played her coworker and romantic interest, Justin Cramer.
• Ron Hayes portrayed newspaper editor Colonel Lounsberry in the 1960 episode "The Great Lounsberry Scoop." In the story line, Lounsberry's reporter friend is killed at The Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana. Walter Sande played the telegrapher who kept the lines open for eighty hours to report on the battle. Hayes was also cast in the lead role in the 1960 episode "Devil's Bar," the story of a Christian pacifist couple, Dan and Mary Bartlett (Terry Loomis), who arrive in Murphy's Flats, California, with intentions of seeking gold in underwater locations. His unusual diving suit resembles a future robot and scares off hostile Indians.
• Anne Helm appeared as Jennie Metcalf, or "Little Britches" in the 1962 episode "Girl with a Gun." Ken Mayer portrayed Marshal Hobe Martin, who naively allowed her father's lie that he was unarmed when he was shot, setting her on her outlaw path, then works for her surrender.
• Percy Helton as Oscar Little buys a half share in a lot in Rawhide, Nevada for $10 and gets a 230,000% payoff in "Little Oscar's Millions"(1953); but can he hold on to it? Also as Alex Grant he is arrested for a 15-year-old murder when he returns to a mining camp, in the 1955 episode, "The Hangman Waits." Things look bleak for Grant until his youthful lawyer, Greg Lewis (Clark Howat), locates a corroborating witness, 75-year-old Harry Gander (Hank Patterson), whose personal diary clears Grant. James Seay played corrupt district attorney Lucius Peck. Helton also appeared as Scrubby in the 1958 episode, "Big Liz."
• William Henry as the "Self Made Man"(1952) San Francisco lawyer Lew Barry loses an arm in a shooting and cannot earn his livelihood as a rock driller. His wife Doris Merrick makes the self made man when she persuades the despondent Barry to study to become a lawyer. Years later, the man who shot him, Jerry (Steve Conte), can't find anyone to defend him on a murder charge and comes to him, his last hope.
• Craig Hill was cast as the author Bret Harte in "Year of Destiny," the last episode of 1956. In the story line, Harte leaves the East and arrives in California in the 1850s. First a stagecoach guard, then a newspaper editor and schoolteacher, he finds fame as a western writer, the author of such short stories as "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat."; Mauritz Hugo appeared as Bummer Smith, the suicidal father of his first main character. Hill was then cast in the 1957 episode "Train of Events" as H. MacFarlane, who guards shipments for the railroad. When he clashes with the Clayton gang, MacFarlane makes mortal enemies. Anne Gwynne and Harry Fleer appeared, respectively, as Belle and Vic Clayton.
• Michael Hinn (1913–1988) of the former Boots and Saddles western series played Brigham Young in the 1969 episode, "Biscuits and Billy, the Kid." In the story line, the Tugwell family, Jason (Ben Cooper), Ellie (Emily Banks), and Mary (Erin Moran), are abandoned by their guide while on a wagon train from Utah to California. He was also in "The Watch" and in "The Vintage Years".
• Harry Holcombe. See entries for Lee Philips, Denver Pyle, John Astin and Hadley Mattingly.
• Boyd Hollister (credited as Robert Palmer) was cast as Bill Gentry, who is courting Susan Sayres (Sandra Marsh) in the 1961 episode "The Third Passenger," a reference to a stray dog which witnesses the murder of Susan's father, Lew Sayres (Tyler McVey).
• Skip Homeier was cast as Doc Holliday, "The Quiet and the Fury", (1964), which focuses on Holliday as a TB patient afraid of being afraid of dying. Grace Lee Whitney as Kate, George Lindsey as John and Paul Fix as the sheriff help him against a lynch mob. In 1965, Homeier played a pastor, Ben Darniell, in Carson City, Nevada, in the episode anachronistically titled (pre-1883) "Fighting Sky Pilot." In the story line, Darniell must reconcile faith with possible fighting to rescue victims, in particular a saloon girl, Claire (Carol Brewster), enslaved by her employer.
• Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr. was cast as Governor Manuel Armijo in "La Tules" (1962) and as Governor Andrés Pico in "Olvera" (1959).
• Wes Hudman played the outlaw Curly Bill Brocius in the 1955 episode "Death and Taxes." In the story line, novice deputy Bud Payson (Wayne Mallory) while courting the sheriff's daughter, June (Eve Brent), enlists the aid of Curly Bill to assist him in collecting property taxes from a large area of the Death Valley country which had not been previously taxed.
• William Hudson was cast as shrewd California businessman Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin in the 1957 episode, "The Man Who Was Never Licked." Robert Argent played Adolph Sutro, a key player in the Comstock Lode. After two marriages, Baldwin wed 20-year-old Jennie Dexter (Daria Massey), who bears him a second daughter twenty years after the birth of his first daughter. The founder of the elegant Baldwin Hotel in San Francisco, he subsequently settled in a grand estate in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles. In 1958, Hudson was cast in "Wheel of Fortune" in the role of the historical Lester Allan Pelton, a millwright in Camptonville, California, who in the late 1870s developed the principles of hydraulic mining.
• Mauritz Hugo appeared as Sure Thing Murdoch in the 1959 episode "Half a Loaf," the story of the origin of the Sugar Loaf mine in Arizona.
• Jeffrey Hunter was cast as the historical Dr. Walter Reed (then a captain) in the 1962 episode, "Suzie." When Reed's troop finds an orphaned white/Apache child, the corporal Robert J. Wilke recommends not getting involved in Indian affairs but is overruled by Reed. He and his wife, Emilie (Aneta Corsaut) take her in and name her "Suzie." Fearing for her safety, Reed resolves to take her to Fort Apache which is recommended against by the commander Frank Ferguson. Upon catching up to them, Suzie's grandfather, Chief Nahnee (Frank DeKova), demands the return of the child but relents and lets the Reeds adopt Suzie, played in her only acting role by Leniece Heywood.
• In "The Saga of Sadie Orchard" (1968)Patricia Huston (1929–1995)as Sadie, camouflages a silver shipment of mine owner, Edwards, Tris Coffin, who is trying to break the anal stranglehold of Purchar, Don Haggerty, on Hillsboro, New Mexico Territory. She must deliver it since her husband John, (John Pickard), is laid up from the last bandit attack.

J

• Bradford Jackson (1928–2009) was cast as the Boston greenhorn Mac Gordon in the 1956 episode, "Pay Dirt." In the story line, Gordon is swindled by two men, played by Paul McGuire and Frank Richards, who sell him a worthless gold mining claim. The film actress Barbara Lang appears as his longsuffering wife, Norma. Jackson also played Asa Mercer, who recruits brides from the East to become wives of settlers in Seattle, in the 1957 episode "Mercer Girl." The women travel to the Northwest via ship. Norma Ward played Annie Stephens, Mercer's romantic interest.
• Sherry Jackson portrayed Katherine "Kate" Turner, the "Lady of the Plains" (1966), a young woman from Boston who is told to take over a wagon train by the dying trailmaster, Ken Mayer; to do so, she must give some gumption to the emigres such as Irene Tedrow. DeForest Kelley played a gambler who falls in love with Kate despite their age difference and the fact that she is engaged to marry upon reaching Salt Lake City.
• Joyce Jameson's character falls for a nerdy Bostonian (Tyler McDuff) who chooses to fend off "The Chivaree"(1952) led by a spurned suitor Harry Lauter after her wedding.
• Vivi Janiss appeared as Deliah Murtaugh in the 1953 episode, "Dear Teacher," with Donna Corcoran, as her daughter, Gladys.
• David Janssen played Dr. Bill Breckenridge in the 1961 episode, "Deadline at Austin." Breckenridge attempts to beat the incompetent cronies of Governor Lambert (Stephen Chase) and hence save Austin, Nevada, from corruption. Jan Harrison played Ruth Woodruff, Breckenridge's romantic interest and the daughter of Mayor Horace Woodruff (Harry Shannon).
• Gloria Jean was cast as singer and actress Lotta Crabtree in the 1954 episode, "Lotta Crabtree." In the story line, Lotta lives in a gold mining camp in California where her mother, Mary Ann Crabtree (Kay Stewart), operates a boarding house and her father, John Crabtree (Paul Weber), has become another failed prospector. Briefly under the tutelage of Lola Montez, Lotta demonstrates rare talent to become the most beloved entertainer in San Francisco.
• Roy Jenson played boxer John L. Sullivan in the 1958 episode, "The Gambler and the Lady." In the story line, Sullivan in his tour of local communities across the country fights an exposition match against Buck Jarrico (Hal Baylor). When the prize money designated to refurbish the school goes missing, both the teacher, Ruth Stewart (Kathleen Case), and the gambler, Brad Forrester (Mark Dana), are falsely accused based on appearances. With Marjorie Bennett as the wife of the mayor.
• Brad Johnson appeared five times on Death Valley Days, including his 1952 portrayal of Death Valley pioneer William Lewis Manly in the first series episode, "How Death Valley Got Its Name." Later that year, with Virginia Lee (q.v.) and Lyle Talbot, he acted in the original telling of "Cynthy's Dream Dress". As Marshal Bill Tilghman he was in pursuit of the Doolin gang in the Oklahoma Territory; but he gets sidetracked from his goal, when his wife, Mary Webster, points out a bride's loss, "A Wedding Dress" (1960) might be as important as that of monied Horace Capshaw's, J. Pat O'Malley, putting his job in jeopardy. Charles Fredericks was cast as Heck Thomas.
• Chubby Johnson portrayed Davis in "The Other Side of the Mountain" (1969). And see Erin Moran and Lisa Gaye entries.
• Russell Johnson appeared as Sgt. Tate, part of Sam Houston's army, in the 1962 episode, "Davy's Friend." Also as Matthew Reynolds, a U.S. attorney he opposes James Reavis, the so-called "Baron of Arizona" (host Robert Taylor), in the 1968 episode, "The Pieces of the Puzzle."
• I. Stanford Jolley, who appeared five times on the series, was cast as J.V. Langley in "The Kickapoo Run" (1954), as Colby in "California's First Ice Man" (1955), as a guide in "California Gold Rush in Reverse" (1957), and as Bart Taylor in his final credited role in the series in "Eruption at Volcano" (1959).
• Gordon Jones and Jane Frazee were cast as rival café owners Steve Bassett and Melodie Marshall in a western mining town in the 1953 episode, "The Rival Hash Houses." The arrangement leads to romance between the two as gold is discovered on a plot of land Melodie purchased from Steve to raise chickens. The episode also features Minerva Urecal and William Fawcett as Mattie and Flapjack Kelly, who work, respectively for Melodie and Steve.
• Morgan Jones was cast in the 1955 episode, "The Crystal Gazer," in the historical role of Sandy Bowers, a Nevada mining magnate. Natalie Norwick (1923–2007) portrayed Eilley Orrum, who consults a crystal ball to guide her decisions and helps Sandy to locate a gold strike. The two marry, spend recklessly on a world tour, and build the still-standing Bowers Mansion, located between Reno and Carson City, Nevada. Bowers died early in life of a lung disease associated with miners, and Eilley was left with many unpaid bills for which she was responsible. She had not foreseen that their fortune would run dry so quickly.
• Katy Jurado, in the 1960 episode, appeared as saloon owner, "La Tules," Maria Gertrudis Barceló who is torn between her love of her son, her people and her respect of her new country, America with Roy Engel as General Kearney and with Rodolfo Acosta as a mixture of Diego Archuleta and Manuel Armijo.

K

• Bruce Kay, who appeared only five times on screen between 1955 and 1958, played the half-Sioux scout Frank Grouard in the 1958 episode, "The Greatest Scout of All." Frank Richards (1909–1992) was cast as Sitting Bull. In the story line, Grouard is caught in a culture clash but becomes a highly regarded scout for the United States Army, one dispatched on the toughest of assignments.
• Howard Keel was cast as Diamond Jim Brady in a 1963 episode of the same name. In the story line, while traveling by train in Texas, Brady accepts a nearly impossible wager that he can sell $100,000 worth of barbed wire to area ranchers who oppose such fencing without leaving the train.
• DeForest Kelley was cast as Shad Cullen, with William Schallert as Dave Meiser and Dick Foran as Ferguson, in the 1962 episode, "The Breaking Point." In the story line, Meiser suspects that a friend is trying to swindle him out of a valuable mine. In 1963, he was cast as Civil War wounded warrior Clint Rogers. In the story, gang leader Jeb Daley, Joseph Ruskin, earns a "Coffin for a Coward" when he murders Rogers' foster father. Rogers orders the coffin to galvanize support among townspeople of Aurora, NV, plagued by division over the continuing War. Kelley subsequently played a possible murderer, Martin, in the 1965 episode "Devil's Gate," with Jim Davis, and he was the gambler Elliott Webster in the 1966 episode, "The Lady of the Plains," with Sherry Jackson.
• Don Kennedy (born 1920) was cast in the lead role of Snowshoe Thompson, also the title of the 1954 episode. In the story line, while Thompson used home-made snowshoes to carry the mail across the snows of the Sierra Nevadas into the various California mining camps, Lee Van Cleef is back in town sowing disaffection in his fiancée. Thompson is considered the "father of California skiing."
• Don Kent (1911–1978) played William Bottle in the 1956 episode, "Bill Bottle's Birthday." In the story line, Bottle nets $100,000 from the sale of a gold claim. He places advertisements in major newspapers inviting his Bottle relatives to attend a family reunion times with his birthday. While various "relatives" come to the party, they are imposters, but Bottle treats them warmly as if they were family.
• Brett King appeared as Butch Cassidy and Robert Knapp and June Dayton as Tom Dixon and wife Rose in "The Devil's Due" (1960). Dixon was a former outlaw trying to change his life and marry his sweetheart who is threatened when a member of his former gang, Cassidy (Brett King), arrives in town.
• Yaphet Kotto was cast as a preacher in the 1967 episode, "A Man Called Abraham." Abraham lives in the southwestern desert country in 1876. In the story line, Abraham works to convince a killer named Cassidy Rayford Barnes that he can change his heart. Bing Russell and Ken Mayer also appeared in this segment.

L

• Stanley Lachman played United States Army Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale in two 1957 episodes, "The Camel Train" and "The California Gold Rush in Reverse." In the former, Beale is instructed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to conduct an experiment with the use of camels in the deserts of the American Southwest. William "Red" Reynolds (1927–1981) was cast as mountain man Kit Carson. In the second episode, Beale attempts to be the first to return East with a sample of newly discovered California gold, but he must escape Mexican bandits to do so.
• Gil Lasky played John Studebaker in the 1959 episode, "Wheelbarrow Johnny." In the story line, young Studebaker fails at gold mining because con men take advantage of him. His talent for making wheelbarrows, however, paves the way for a bright future in the transportation industry. Emile Meyer appeared in this episode as the storekeeper, Sam Dalrymple.
• Harry Lauter, a character actor, appeared seven times on the series, including his portrayal of newspaperman Mel Hardin in "Gold Lake" and in "Wheelbarrow Johnny", also twice as Asa Bennett in "The Valley of Death" and "A Friend indeed" (both '68) (see Catherine McLeod).
• Virginia Lee (1924–2008) was cast as Rose Calvin in the 1958 episode, "Thorn of the Rose," the story of a woman with a past happily married to a blacksmith, Gil Calvin (Walt Barnes). Then she faces blackmail from an outlaw in her past.
• Bethel Leslie was cast as Esther Morris in the 1960 episode, "A Woman's Rights." Morris demands justice for her husband's murder at the hands of the McGreevy gang (Bartlett Robinson). With the help of Lucretia Mott (Hope Summers) and Governor Lee (Frank Wilcox), she works successfully in 1869 for the passage of woman's suffrage in Wyoming Territory and thereafter becomes the first female judge in the United States.
• Nan Leslie, Robert Lowery and Russell Hicks appeared in "Whirlwind Courtship" (1953).
• George J. Lewis was cast as General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the namesake of Vallejo, California, in the 1956 episode, "The Bear Flag," the story of the conflict between newly arrived Americans and the old Spanish families of California. Robert Tafur played Don Miguel Ruiz, and Don C. Harvey was cast as Ezekiel "Stuttering Zeke" Merritt, who proceeds with plans for the Bear Flag Republic.
• June Lockhart played librarian Ina Coolbrith, first poet laureate of California. Her "Magic Locket" fractures her friendship with the teen-aged Isadora Duncan, (Kathy Garver). It required another poet Joaquin Miller (Sean McClory) to see the reality.
• Jack Lomas (1911–1959) was cast as Walter E. Scott, or Death Valley Scotty in the 1955 episode also entitled "Death Valley Scotty." In the story line, Scotty in 1905 commissioned the "Scott Special," a passenger train of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, into a showcase run from Los Angeles to Chicago. The steam locomotive Santa Fe No. 1010 was used to re-create the record-setting 44-hour railroad run and was reconditioned especially for filming. William Schallert was cast as the historical Albert Mussey Johnson, Scotty's millionaire benefactor.
• Britt Lomond was cast as professional gambler Faro Bill, with Diane Brewster as his romantic interest, Grace, in the 1956 episode, "Faro Bill's Layout." Though she objects to Faro Bill's occupation as a faro dealer, Grace she relents after Bill adopts Butch (Gary Hunley), an orphaned relative of Sidewinder (Steve Conte), a card player whom Bill killed in self-defense. Lomond also played the Spaniard James Addison Reavis in the 1956 episode, "The Baron of Arizona." Two newspapermen doubt Reavis' claim to millions of acres in the New Mexico Territory, which then included Arizona. Though Reavis' papers seem authentic and date to colonial times, the reporters prove them to be fraudulent. In a 1968 episode about Reavis entitled, "The Pieces of the Puzzle," series host Robert Taylor portrayed the lead role, with Russell Johnson as Matthew Reynolds.
• Dayton Lummis portrayed New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace in "Shadows on the Window" (1960), with Martin Braddock as Billy the Kid and Katherine Warren as Wallace's wife, Susan. Wallace manages to write the biblical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ despite threats to his life and worries for his family. In another 1960 episode, "City of Widows," Lummis played a mine owner, John De La Mar, who faces a crisis in his namesake community, after a number of his miners suddenly die of silicone poisoning.
• William Lundigan was cast as Nathaniel Norgate in the 1961 episode, "Dangerous Crossing," which focuses on religious settlers who encounter outlaws led by Don O'Kelly operating an illegal toll-gate.
• Ida Lupino was cast as Pamela Mann in the 1960 episode, "Pamela's Oxen." In the story line, the widowed Pamela resists letting Sam Houston (Jeff DeBinning) (1918–2012) take her oxen to carry cannon in the fight for Texan independence But a military officer, Steve Barnes (James Coburn) convinces Pamela to make the sacrifice. James T. Callahan played the role of Private Riggs.
• John Lupton, known for his lead role in Broken Arrow, was cast as Buffalo Bill Cody in the 1959 episode, "The Grand Duke." The Grand Duke of Russia is portrayed in the segment by Alexander Davion. The episode focuses on the friendship that developed when the skeptical Cody was assigned by the Army to escort The Grand Duke on a western buffalo hunt. In 1961, Lupton was cast in "South of Horror Flats" as Pinkerton agent Allen Hodges, who is hired by a ghost-plagued woman, Abigale Briton (Jocelyn Somers), to take her and her fortune in gold to San Francisco (with Hank Patterson). In 1962, Lupton was cast as Milton Clark in the episode "The Private Mint of Clark, Gruber and Co." Jerry Paris played Emmanuel Gruber. They were Denver bankers who the U.S. government prosecutes for operating a mint; their lawyer was played by Bernard Kates . Sue Randall as Clark's wife, Martha, was the brains behind their success, with Alvy Moore as newspaper editor William Byers.

M

• James MacArthur was cast as Kit Carson in a 1967 retelling of "Spring Rendezvous" with Brioni Farrell as Carson's Native American love for whose honor Carson duels against Chonard (Gregg Palmer), with Native American, Ned Romero, as her father.
• Tyler MacDuff played Norman Berry in the 1956 episode, "The Hoodoo Mine." In the story line, Berry is prospecting for gold with the dishonest Bill Snyder (Duane Grey). When Snyder leaves Berry for dead in the desert to steal his part of the claim, a young Indian woman, Lupin (Linda Brent), comes to Berry's rescue. She had earlier tipped him off on the location of a gold strike.
• Gavin MacLeod was cast in the 1968 episode, "The Great Diamond Mines," as prospector Phil Arnold, who with his partner and cousin, Johnny Slack (John Fiedler), deceive San Francisco banker William Chapman Ralston (Tod Andrews) into buying their salted and worthless diamond mine at an undisclosed desert location. Allen Wood played Clarence King, the government geologist and later the first director of the United States Geological Survey.
• Murray MacLeod and Dennis Whitcomb were cast as two young men, Cliff and Frank, respectively, released from the United States Army still living on a temporarily deserted western fort in the 1969 episode, "A Full House." The two engage in a poker game in which the loser agrees to get married; soon both are in love and things fall into place like a storybook romance. Heidi Vaughn and June Zachary play the female leads.
• Guy Madison portrayed Luke Short as the operator of the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1960 episode "Extra Guns." In the story line, Short battles a corrupt city hall. Jon Lormer and Wilton Graff also appeared in this episode as rival saloon owner Sutton and political boss A. B. Webster, respectively. Joan Taylor played Mady, the pianist for Short.
• Jock Mahoney was cast as an engineer, Andy Prentis, in the 1954 episode, "Husband Pro-Tem." In the story line, Prentis is hired by a railroad executive, Alonzo Phelps (Howard Negley) (1898–1983), to negotiate a private agreement with the Indian Chief Black Hawk (Lane Bradford) so that the railroad can be constructed across Indian lands. In his assignment, Prentis soon romantically tangles with Phelps' daughter, Evelyn (Gloria Marshall). Also as supposed Indian "Swamper Ike"(193), Joe, he loves a white woman Margaret Field who loves him back but is afraid she wouldn't know what an Indian wants. But spurned bigoted suitor CrowleyDenver Pyle sees them hugging. Crowley and her "uncle" Henry Rowland try to kill Joe who wounds her uncle. The sheriff Tex Terry declines to pursue charges but warns of people stealing gold from local mines. Joe leaves for his tribe only to find his mother has died leaving him a cryptic message that implies he is white; while trying to verify the message, he saves mule team driver Hank Patterson who gives him a job that might help him solve the riddle.
• Edward Mallory was cast in the 1961 episode, "Lieutenant Bungle." In the story line, Lieutenant Ross, fresh out of West Point, is given the nickname "Bungle" because of his inept ways at a western fort. But when called upon to save his men from an Indian attack, he rises to the occasion. Then he informs Major Galloway (Philip Ober) that he intends to marry the major's daughter, much to Galloway's surprise and at first reluctance to accept "Bungle" as a son-in-law.
• Wayne Mallory played deputy Bud Payson in the 1955 episode, "Death and Taxes." While courting the sheriff's daughter (Eve Brent), Payson enlists the aid of Curly Bill Brocius (Wes Hudman) to help him collect property taxes from a large area of the Death Valley country which had not been previously taxed.
• Dorothy Malone, pre-Peyton Place, appeared in the 1961 episod, "The Watch" as Mary Parker, a beautiful young schoolteacher who is the object of rivalry between two men involved in a mine cave-in, Rafe Pegarski (Steve Clinton) and Jack Short (Bing Russell).
• Sally Mansfield as Wilhemina Cannon enjoys supporting the Utah community after she and her husband, David (Robert Hutton), are ordered from Salt Lake City to colonize the wilderness, but needs some beauty; "Sego Lilies"(1953) might suffice, but will they bloom in time to keep her in St. George? With Hank Patterson.
• Michael Margotta played a youthful Butch Cassidy in the 1969 episode, "Drop Out," set in Utah in the 1880s. In the story line, 16-year-old George Leroy Parker is rebellious against his father, Maxy Parker (Russ Conway), and his church bishop, played by William Zucker. He takes the name of a much older rustler acquaintance, Mike Cassidy (Tony Russel) and sets forth to Salt Lake City. The episode aired the same year as the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
• Joe Maross starred as the pioneer William Eddy in the 1964 episode, "Hastings Cut-off." A survivor of the 1846 Donner Party. Eddy's grief over the loss of his wife and children isn't helped by his friend from the party John Alderson and his nurse, Jenny Ellen Burstyn; and he vows revenge against Lansford Hastings (Robert Ellenstein), who in The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California recommended his Hastings Cutoff, a shortcut through the Rocky Mountains that had been useful for an earlier wagon train but proved disastrous for the Donner party and its late timing on the trip west.
• Linda Marsh was cast as Susan Shelby Magoffin, the first woman to travel the Santa Fe Trail. Ronald W. Reagan as frontiersman William Bent is afraid the trail is "No Place for a Lady" (1965) in the contested land on the road to Santa Fe. Simon Scott played Magoffin's husband, Samuel, with Rodolfo Acosta.
• Dewey Martin was cast as John Wheeler in "The Bigger they Are" (1963); his rejection by a conniving woman sends him on a Death Wish quest. As a result, he saves the life of Arkie Strother Martin drawing the interest of saloon keeper Gilda, Gloria Talbott who had lost her father to such a woman. In her confusion, she propels him onward in the quest towards Bigfoot Michael Conrad and sends Arkie after him.
• Strother Martin as country chicken farmer, Alfred Hall, files "The Four Dollar (Law) Suit" (1966) against an insurance company whose agent Woodrow Parfrey incorrectly calculates his payment. but whose wife Amzie Strickland correctly calculates it in this comedy segment. J. Pat O'Malley plays his attorney and Anthony Costello, the school teacher who won't testify, instead teaching Hall how to present his case (with a more subtly incorrect calculation that gives the correct answer in this case). In the 1967 episode "Silver Tombstone," Martin played the Arizona miner Ed Schieffelin, who after years of failure invites his brother to join him in a pending strike in Tombstone, Arizona or, more likely, in a "Silver Tombstone" (1966). Jamie Farr appears as geologist Dick Gird.
• Tony Martin was cast as Amadeo Giannini in the 1962 episode, "The Unshakeable Man," a dramatization of the establishment of the Bank of America. The story line focuses on Giannini saving his bank from the impact of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake by investing in his fellow citizens during the disaster and turning it into the largest financial institution in the world. The episode also starred Parley Baer as Crowder, a traditional bank president.
• Daria Massey plays newlywed Janet Gee in the 1957 episode, "The Rosebush of Tombstone," the story of the largest rosebush in the United States established in Tombstone, Arizona. A native of Scotland, Janet moves with her husband to Tombstone, Arizona, where she befriends rough women and cares for a homeless Indian boy. A rosebush from her mother lifts her spirits. Almira Sessions is cast in this episode as shrewd businesswoman Nellie Cashman.
• Jack Mather, among five appearances on Death Valley Days, played legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight in the 1959 episode, "Old Blue." The story focuses on Goodnight's lead steer, Old Blue, who is stolen and thereafter adopted as a family pet. Myron Healey was cast in this episode as Red Snell and Jeanne Bates as Helen.
• Carole Mathews was cast as Belle Starr in the 1961 episode, "A Bullet for the D.A." In the story line, Belle unsuccessfully plots the revenge assassination of United States Attorney W.H.H. Clayton (Don Haggerty) during a Wild West show in Fort Smith, Arkansas. William Thourlby was cast as Belle's husband, Sam Starr, and Carlyle Mitchell, in his penultimate acting role as "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker, under whom Clayton served. The episode reveals that attorney Clayton secretly taught Sam Starr how to read.
• Hedley Mattingly was cast as the photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the 1964 episode "The $25,000 Wager." In the story line, former Governor Leland Stanford (Harry Holcombe) (1906–1987), a race-horse owner, hires Muybridge, to determine by multiple cameras whether all four legs of a horse are briefly off the ground while trotting. Diane Brewster was cast as Muybridge's wife, Flora. Also see entry for Byron Morrow.
• Ken Mayer was cast as Marshal Hobe Martin in the 1962 episode "Girl with a Gun." In the story line, an outlaw's vengeful daughter, Jennie Metcalf (Anne Helm), joins her father's gang after he is justifiably killed in a showdown with the marshal.
• Lin McCarthy (1918–2002) was cast as Dr. Tom Bell in the 1959 episode "The Scalpel and the Gun," the story of a frontier doctor whose indifference contributed to the death of a woman. Faced with disdain from his fellow settlers, he joins an outlaw gang and ultimately is hanged.
• Patty McCormack appeared as young Virginia Reed in the 1960 episode, "A Girl Called Virginia," with John Anderson as her stepfather, James F. Reed. Edward Platt was cast as Frank Graves. In the story line, the Donner Party crosses the Sierra Nevadas, but the Reeds are banished after a dispute ends in a death. Virginia proves helpful beyond her years as the family faces great hardship while headed to Sutter's Fort, California.
• Darren McGavin was cast as apothecary Zacharias Gurney in the 1961 episode, "The Stolen City." When he is being cheated out of his store in San Francisco, Gurney is enlisted by future United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton (Harlan Warde) to stop the theft. He consults Tarbula (Vladimir Sokoloff), the maker of the government seals which may hold a clue to the fraud.
• Ann McCrea was cast in three episodes, including Melinda Pratt in "Mr. Bigfoot" (1956) and "Pirates of San Francisco" (1960).
• Jody McCrea was cast as the historical Lieutenant John J. Pershing in the 1962 episode, "To Walk with Greatness." In the story line, Lt. Pershing defeats his sergeant Robert J. Wilke in a fight, gaining the respect of his troop which he needs when pursuing three outlaws (chiefly Bing Russell as Jake Conlan) who endanger a treaty with the Zuni headed by Nataha, Eugene Iglesias. Frank Ferguson was cast as Colonel Carr and Yvonne Craig as Emma.
• Tim McIntire played Lorenz Oatman, a young man who obtains the help of an Army officer, (Ronald Reagan), in the search for his long lost sister, Olive Oatman (Shary Marshall) from whom he was separated five years earlier when the Apache killed their parents in a raid. Abraham Sofaer appeared as her Mojave adoptive father who taught her that instead of being a savage, "The Lawless Have Laws" (1965).
• David McLean was cast as frontiersman Kit Carson in the 1963 episode, "Stubborn Mule Hill." Charles Bateman was cast as Carson's friend, the famous Army Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale. McLean as Stephen F. Austin in the 1964 episode "A Book of Spanish Grammar" travels to Mexico City to purchase land in colonial Texas to sell to future settlers. His traveling companion, Valdez (Rodolfo Acosta), wonders why Austin risks so much to help strangers (with Eugene Iglesias). As Luke Lundy, he also worked to stop the cycle of "Death in the Desert" (1965) set in motion by sadists such as Burgess, Don Megowan and perpetuated by Native American Paiutes such as Nick, Valentin de Vargas and Ayote, Tom Nardini. Also as aging Marshall Stone, his fear of losing credibility for his "Ton of Tin" (1968) badge by wearing glasses can't be assuaged by his wife Susan Brown nor his ward Aron Kincaid; but will it cost him his life to killer McDnaiels Ken Scott? Also as one of "The Saint(s) of Travelers"(1970) he is protected by Naranjo Ned Romero and Forbes against Blue Feather Joaquin Martinez who is angered over his sister's conversion; in turn he protects Levi Spigelberg Robert Ellenstein whose plague has caused his abandonment.
• in 1 of at least 4 appearances, John McLiam appeared as smooth talking Terrence O'Toole who requires the help of apprentice smooth talker Nat "Joaquin" Miller (George Paulsin) to escape hanging at "Early Candle Lighten" (series finale, 1970).
• As Mrs. Bennett, Catherine McLeod's Faith holds the seemingly doomed party (including Douglas Fowley and Harry Lauter together in "The Valley of Death" (1969) while Manly, (Jim Davis, and another man, Bing Russell) head out of Death Valley hoping to find food and water. She can't keep Culverwell Lee Bergere in the camp; but his sword marks the way back for the 2 men from Edward Colmans' character's outpost; but will there be anyone left?
• Tyler McVey appeared four times, including the role of a priest in the 1962 episode, "Abel Duncan's Dying Wish," and in the 1969 segment, "The Oldest Outlaw."
• Don Megowan and Douglas Henderson were cast as prospectors "Big" Charlie Loomis and "Little" Charlie Porter, respectively, who strike it rich in the 1954 episode, "To Big Charlie from Little Charlie." "Little" Charlie since became a small-town shopkeeper; "Big" Charlie," an eastern business mogul. After many years apart, "Little Charlie" sent "Big Charlie" a Christmas card, which reminds him of still valued friendships from the past.
• When 2 sisters (Linda Meiklejohn and Janice Farr) arrive to claim their inheritance, the executor of the estate, Bill Zuckert connives to get their homestead "By the Book" (1968) with the grudging help of his cousins, Jess Pearson and Tim O'Kelly. But how can true love bloom in just 4 days?
• Sam Melville was cast as Indian agent John Clum in the 1970 episode, "Clum's Constabulary." In the story line, Clum recruits an elite team of Apaches to assist the U.S. Cavalry in the Southwest but faces opposition within the white community. Tris Coffin was cast as Captain Loren Phillips and John Considine as Lago. As David Merriweather with Paul Winfield as his business partner in 1819 New Mexico, he cast "Bread of the desert"(1968) upon the waters by helping some Pawnee who have been attacked by a renegade Spanish officer who then waylays them too.
• Denny Miller played Gustaf Olaffson in the 1968 episode, "Britta Goes Home." In the story line, Gustaf awaits the arrival of his Swedish bride, Britta (Susanne Cramer). While headed to Gustaf's sod house, Britta becomes disillusioned about her future. Then a visit with other homesteaders help her overcome her fear. Also as Tommy Cruse with the gift of The Blarney trying to win the widow McGarvey, Maura McGiveney, he isn't sure if 2 men (Don Haggerty and Don Megowan, would jump his claim when he finds "The Leprechaun of Last Chance" (1968), Walter Burke.
• Fabrizio Mioni was cast as Paul Duval, a man falsely condemned to Hangtown's gallows for a missing body murder, in the 1962 episode, "Hangtown Fry," set in Placerville, when that California community was known as "Hangtown." In the story line, Duval orders a made-up recipe of bacon and oysters in the form of an egg omelette in hopes of postponing his execution while his girlfriend, Ann Alton (Nancy Rennick), frantically seeks information to clear him. Helen Kleeb played Ann's mother with Robert Cornthwaite as the "judge". The recipe is still known as the Hangtown fry.
• Cameron Mitchell was cast as Pete Kitchen, an Arizona pig farmer and rancher battling Indians even on his wedding night, in the 1960 episode, "Pete Kitchen's Wedding Night." Barbara Luna played his bride, Dona Rosa.
• Ewing Mitchell played Edmund S. Meany in the 1957 episode, "The Washington Elm," and Fred Gerlock in the 1958 episode, "The Red Flannel Shirt."
• George Mitchell played Charley Stoner whose nature savvy helped him strike it rich in the 1959 episode, "Fair Exchange."
• Roger Mobley was cast as Matt Denby, Jr., in the 1960 episode, "The Madstone." In the story line, young Denby is bitten by a rabid skunk and must travel 150 miles alone to get access to a madstone owned by his estranged grandfather, Caleb Reese (George Macready), a method that was then the only treatment possible for hydrophobia. Myron Healey played Denby's father, whose wife stays behind when he moves to start a new ranch in New Mexico Territory. Denby, Sr., is alienated from the boy's maternal grandfather but makes amends so the family can remain in Texas.
• Ricardo Montalbán played Joaquin Murrieta in the 1960 episode, "Eagle in the Rocks." Others cast in the episode were Karl Swenson, Lisa Gaye, and Jack Kruschen.
• Alvy Moore, prior to his role as county agent Hank Kimball on CBS's Green Acres situation comedy, played in the 1962 episode, "The Grass Man," the Swiss-American botanist David Douglas, for whom the Douglas fir tree is named. Keenan Wynn co-starred as Douglas' friend, Josh Tavers. Iron Eyes Cody played an Indian chief who threatens to kill Douglas and Tavers.
• Erin Moran was cast, pre-Happy Days, at the age of nine as Mary Elizabeth Foster in the 1969 episode, "The Tenderfoot," the story of three orphans in the West given rights to a gold mine. Mitch Vogel played her middle brother, Jerry Ray Foster; Kevin Burchett, their older brother, Billy Earl Foster, and Chubby Johnson portrayed the prospector Jake.
• Roland Morris (1922–1986) was cast as journalist Sam Swift in the 1954 episode, "Mr. Godiva". In the story line, Swift must earn a fortune in three days to gain permission to marry Marjorie Delafield (Yvonne Crossley in her only credited acting role), the daughter of business mogul Marcus Delafield (Emile Meyer).
• Byron Morrow made a cameo appearance as Mormon figure Brigham Young in the 1966 episode, "An Organ for Brother Brigham." In the story line, the organ crafted and guided to Salt Lake City by Joseph Harris Ridges (1827–1914) of Australia, played by Hedley Mattingly, becomes mired in sand. Morgan Woodward, as wagon master Luke Winner, feels compelled to jettison the instrument until Ridges finds solid rock under the sand.
• Vic Morrow was cast as soldier/engineer Lt. Robert Benson in the 1962 episode, "A Matter of Honor." The story focuses on Benson's fiancée, Indiana (Shirley Ballard) (1925–2012), who tries to persuade him to boost their income by selling inside Army information to criminal real estate moguls like Joseph Hooker (Howard Petrie). Trevor Bardette and Meg Wyllie were cast as Captain and Mrs. Warner.
• Ken Murray was cast as aging gold prospector Dave Eldridge, with Dick Sargent as his tenderfoot junior partner, Cliff Streeter, in the 1960 episode, "Gamble with Death." In the story line, Streeter must leave a wounded Eldridge behind in the desert to seek helpwhen their supplies go missing. Eldridge found a gold strike but did not live to claim it. Tom Greenway played a sheriff in this episode. Murray subsequently played Whipsaw, the operator of a Utah Territory stagecoach depot, in the 1964 episode, "Little Cayuse." In the story line, Whipsaw and his partner, George Mitchell in 1862 take in a Cayuse orphan Larry Domasin, who demonstrates his loyalty to the men during an Indian attack.

N–O

• Anna Navarro (1933–2006) portrayed 17-year-old Maria in the 1956 episode, "The Hidden Treasure of Cucamonga." In the story line, Maria upon the sudden death of her father, becomes mistress of a large California ranch. After she marries a persistent suitor, Don Pedro (Richard Gilden), a dream leads her to the discovery of a fortune stashed away by her father in the wall of her bedroom. Than Wyenn played a fellow hacienda owner who had entrusted his own money to Maria's father.
• Howard Negley (1898–1983) as U.S. Senator William Morris Stewart of Nevada ia one of "The Bandits of Panamint."(1953) who out-lawyers two bandits, played by Rick Vallin and Glase Lohmond, who had accidentally stumbled upon a rich silver strike when they bargain for a pardon, But his recognition their love interests Sheila Ryan and Gloria Winters are worthy of being lawyers may keep everyone out of trouble. Negley played another historical role in 1953 as John Bidwell in "The Lady with the Blue Silk Umbrella." General Crosby's wife Ernestine Barrier persuades New York's senator to vote for statehood; and with Kathleen Case as Helen Crosby, her daughter who hides 1850 California statehood papers in her umbrella and Rick Vallin as an army lieutenant, they hope to keep the papers out of the reach of seditious southerners opposed to an anti-autocratic California.
• Ed Nelson was cast in the 1962 episode, "Fort Bowie: Urgent," as Frank Girard, an escaped convict in 1895 who heads to Fort Bowie, Arizona, with the intent of murderously disrupting a wedding. The recently invented telegraph (operated by Dub Taylor's character) that can stop Girard is being monopolized for that wedding.
• Leonard Nimoy played Yellow Bear in "The Journey" (1965), with Wayne Rogers as Richard Henry Pratt and Robert J. Wilke as Sergeant Wilks, two cavalry officers who disagree on how to handle Indian prisoners with Pratt seemingly promising voluntary schools.
• Jay Novello as Padre Rodriguez is asked to "Let my People Go" (1967), a reference to the biblical Moses. In this story, Pacomino (Michael Keep) leads the enslaved tribe, the Chumash. But Mariano Valentin de Vargas challenges Pacomio's leadership. He also appeared as Jack Harris, the town drunk who is savvy enough to get on the church commission to get "A Bell for Volcano" (1964) in hopes of getting drinking money; his plan is interrupted by a bandit with his own ideas.
• Carol Nugent was cast as Nancy Drake in the 1957 episode, "The Calico Dog." In the story line, Nancy is at first jealous of Colonel, the dog of her fiancé, John Chapman (Warren Frost). The Colonel proves his worth by becoming a mail carrier between mining camps in the Death Valley country.
• Erin O'Brien was cast as the singer Emma Nevada in the 1960 episod, "Emma Is Coming." Rick Jason was cast in this episode as Duke Clayton, and Alan Reed played Emma's manager, Colonel Henry Mapleson.
• Carroll O'Connor was cast in the 1963 episode, "A Gun Is Not a Gentleman," as U.S. Senator David C. Broderick, a California abolitionist Democrat. In the story, Broderick, who has never used a gun, is challenged by pro-slavery California Supreme Court justice David S. Terry to a duel to misdirect attention from the bribe he offered Broderick which was overheard by the female (and therefore not credible at that time) owner of the house Phyllis Coates. As a result of Broderick's death, Terry loses all influence; and thirty years later, he assaults the US Supreme court Justice who replaced him on the bench but is shot dead by the US Marshall bodyguard.
• J. Pat O'Malley as Stony Wilson uses his savings to buy an abandoned mine The Black Prince " which he had been told houses missing loot ("The Secret of the Black Prince," (1968)). But he encounters difficulty finding the loot. He then schemes to get his friend Bergman, James Seay, to do the work. O'Malley played Pete Rohrer, a livery stable owner, in the 1968 episode, "The World's Greatest Swimming Horse," the story of a flim-flam for charity, with Jesse Pearson in the starring role of the charming Frank Ball, the owner of the horse.
• Soon-Taik Oh appeared as Japanese immigrant Matsonuke Sakurai, whose tea and silk moth raising enterprise has effectively succumbed to the first onslaughts of "The Dragon of Gold Hill"(1970), a drought and towns people's indifference, is trying to protect the immigrant company until their sponsor can procure the money for them to return to Japan. He is encouraged to face the Dragon by school teacher Okei Ito, Momo Yashima, who accompanied them. But his way of peace is threatened by settlers frightened by the Dragon's drought, epidemic and bigot Daniel Turner, William Smith.

P–Q

• Gregg Palmer was cast in thirteen episodes. In 1958, he played the Kentuckian William Tell Coleman in the episode, "Empire of Youth." In the story line, Coleman fails as a prospector but shuns gambling and devotes his talents elsewhere and makes several fortunes in farming and mining borax. Palmer also appeared as Tom Horn in "Perilous Cargo" as John Brewster in "Perilous Refuge," and as Forty Steps Randall in "Forty Steps to Glory," all of which aired in 1959.
• Fess Parker (pre-Davy Crockett) appeared as Curt Morrison, a cowboy/militia-marshal patrolling the New Mexico land rush of 1895, in the 1954 episode, "The Kickapoo Run." Nancy Hale played his romantic interest, Bonnie Carter, whom he meets again after the death of her husband. In the 1961 episode, "A Miracle at Whiskey Gulch," Parker portrayed the Reverend Joel H. Todd, who tries to instill Christian principles in a wild frontier community. Others in the episode were Eddie Firestone as Applejack Jim and George Kennedy, cast as Steamboat Sully, who engage in a brutal fistfight.
• Michael Pate was cast as the Navaho Two Horses in the 1962 episode, "Experiment in Fear." In the story line, Two Horses (one of the first native police who were then legally unarmed) must use psychology when he is captured by the thieves he was sent to reconnoiter with Barney Phillips as the Indian agent who sends him out.
• Dennis Patrick was cast as Patrick O'Dell in the 1958 episode, "The Red Flannel Shirt." O'Dell believes his special shirt will bring him luck in mining. Ewing Mitchell was cast as Fred Gerlock, a greedy mine owner.
• Julie Parrish appeared as Mariana Jaramilio in the 1967 episode, "Along Came Mariana," the story of the unraveling of the peonage labor system in the New Mexico Territory. Carlos Romero played Jose de la Cruz Romero.
• Hank Patterson made nine appearances, including "The Mule Mail," "Ten Feet of Nothing," "Husband Pro-Tem," "The Blonde King" and "Solid Foundation".
• Jesse Pearson played Henry Windsor in the 1966 episode, "The Courtship of Carrie Huntington," set in the future Washington state. In the story line, Windsor is hired to take Carrie (Sue Randall) to her sister's wedding after she misses the stagecoach. Henry and Carrie engage in a mock wedding, but on the return trip, Henry wins her over after they are held by Indians, and Carrie nurses a sick child to health. Helen Kleeb plays Carrie's mother, with Dub Taylor as a station agent. In the 1970 episode, "The Mezcla Man," Pearson played Jess Ivy, who would propose marriage to a young woman, Sarah Ewing (Karen Carlson), were he on a sound financial footing. He then looks for hidden gold.
• Larry Pennell, cast as detective Romer Maxwell, tries to catch Kate Hanson (Virginia Christine) for smuggling high-grade ore in the 1960 episode, "Queen of the High-Graders." Maxwell falls in love with Hanson's daughter Sarah (Wanda Shannon). Will Wright played mine owner Jim Barker, who hired Maxwell on the mission.
• Gil Peterson as unknowledgeable prospector Jim Otis with bride, Martha, Susan Seaforth Hayes who has given him an ultimatum to build a "Solid Foundation"(1967), has 2 more days to build it. He sets out into country endangered by murderous bandits and discovers paper gold, danger and maybe something more in Hamilton, Nevada.
• Lee Philips was cast as the compassionate young Lieutenant Leonard Wood in the 1960 episode, "The White Healer." When a deadly illness breaks out in the Arizona Territory among the Apache, Wood is willing to treat the Indians once Geronimo, played by Joe Bassett (1910–1997), surrenders to the United States Army. Harry Holcombe (1906–1987) was cast as General Nelson Miles.
• Barney Phillips was cast as General Winfield Scott Hancock in the 1962 episode, "The Truth Teller," a study of the Medicine Lodge Indian Peace Treaty. Investigative reporter Henry Morton Stanley (Ed Kemmer) arrives at Fort Larned, Kansas, to assess Hancock's effort to avoid war on the frontier and helps Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Colson long after Guy Madison played Hickok in a weekly syndicated series) uncover a racist conspiracy to murder Native Americans to steal their land, .
• John M. Pickard appeared ten times on the series. He was cast as Silas St. John, a particularly skilled stagecoach driver in the 1958 episode, "The Jackass Mail." St. John carries passengers and the mail on the San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line (1857–1861), better known as the "Jackass Mail." He maintains good relations with the Maricopa Indians and trains his mules so that they will work only for him. In the story line, he picks up a dishonest couple, Sam and Lita Walton (Frank Gerstle and Maura Murphy), who steal treasures from Indian graves and threaten the peace on the mail route. Pickard also played Sheriff McKittrick in "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick" (1966); in "The Other Cheek" (1968) as rancher Ellsworth, he hires legendary lawman Sam Smith (Robert Dunlap) as a ranch hand. Smith, who hopes to win Ellsworth's daughter (Robert Taylor's stepdaughter Manuela), must face the foreman bully Hal Baylor armed primarily with his Faith.
• Phillip Pine as Kit Carson and Michael Pate as scout Frenchy Godey in the John C. Fremont (Dick Simmons) trail-blazing Second Expedition are the comic nemesises for Gilpin Don Keefer; but when they stop as "Samaritans, Mountain Style" (1966) to help a Mexican settler in dire straits, they end up immortalized by him (with Gregg Barton). Pine, Pate, Keefer and Simmons appeared shortly thereafter with Charles Bateman (appeared 4 times) in another Death Valley Days episode, "The Hero of Apache Pass."
• Judson Pratt appeared twice: "The Left Hand is Damned" (1964) and as a general in "Raid on the San Francisco Mint" (1965).
• Guy Prescott (1914–1998) played Barnaby Taylor who enters a contest to determine "The Longest Beard in the World," a 1956 episode. His friends want him to accent his beard as he runs in California for the United States House of Representatives, but his fiancé Francis Trent (Patricia Donohue) wants him clean shaven. When he loses the contest in Chicago by less than one inch in length, he shaves the beard and is still elected to Congress. However, The Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774–1949 does not have information on any Representative Barnaby Taylor.
• William Pullen (1917–2008) was cast as Alex Todd in the 1956 episode, "The Last Letter." In the story line, Todd is a failed prospector with a thriving business delivering the U.S. mail to miners in the Death Valley country who are starving for news from home. Clint Eastwood, before Rawhide, played John Lucas, who does not subscribe to Todd's service and nearly loses $2 million for his failure to do so.
• Denver Pyle was cast seven times, the last of which was in the title role, "The Resurrection of Deadwood Dick" (1966), based on the legendary frontiersman, Deadwood Dick. He also appeared as the bigot Barkey who tries to get a Sioux brave (Michael Keep) lynched for defending his wife against a bigwig Sioux female molester. The brave (unlike Barkey) acts ""With Honor and Integrity" (1963) as does his lawyerSandy Kenyon, Marshall Don C. Harvey and the judge, Harry Holcombe, who refers the case to the US Supreme Court. He also directed several episodes of Death Valley Days.
• Eddie Quillan was cast as Hill Beachy in the 1961 episode, "Trial by Fear." In the story line, Beachy seeks to prove that two hoodlums, Lowry, Ed Peck and Romaine, robbed and murdered his fellow businessman, Lloyd Magruder (Phil Chambers).

R

• John Raitt appeared in the 1960 episode, "The Man on the Road," as Jim Dandy, an itinerant peddler who befriends a boy, Pete Rawson (Kevin Jones), whose father, played by House Peters, Jr., has been jailed falsely for horse theft. The episode also stars Mort Mills as Holt, a leader in the efforts to lynch the suspect. Jim Dandy devises s scheme to find the real horse thief. Raitt also manages to sing one song in this episode.
• Sue Randall appeared six times on the series, including the roles of Virginia Slade in the 1963 episode, "The Man Who Died Twice", with Don Collier as Jack Slade, who is sent to fire a criminal, Ben Holladay (Robert J. Wilke), but is shot causing a fatal personality change. She also appeared as Carrie Huntington in the 1966 segment, "The Courtship of Carrie Huntington".
• Stuart Randall appeared as Judge Reed in the 1968 episode, "The Pieces of the Puzzle," another version of "The Baron of Arizona," played in this segment by host Robert Taylor. Garry Walberg and Edward Colmans also appeared.
• Paula Raymond was cast as the Union Army spy Pauline Cushman in the 1964 episode, "The Wooing of Perilous Pauline." In this "Taming of the Shrew" story set in Casa Grande, Arizona Territory where the feisty Miss Cushman was operating a saloon, she is wooed by her future husband, Jere Fryer (Ray Danton), who makes a bet with a friend that he can convince her to marry him within one week.
• Ronald Reagan, among his last acting roles in 1965, played the eventually bankrupt banker William Chapman Ralston, with Vaughn Taylor as financier Asbury Harpending, in "Raid on the San Francisco Mint" and as Admiral David Farragut, with June Dayton as Mrs. Virginia Farragut, in "The Battle of San Francisco Bay," the story of the 1856 seizure of power by the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. Reagan was cast too in "No Gun Behind His Badge" as the historical Thomas J. Smith, the marshal of Abilene, Kansas, in 1869 and 1870, in which capacity he tried with fatal results to avoid the use of firearms in the line of duty. (However, as the article on Smith says "The television dramatization does not accurately depict the circumstances of Smith's death and decapitation." In particular Smith was using a gun at the time of the incident that killed him.) On September 30, 1965, Reagan played James B. Hume in "Temporary Warden," the story of a warden at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. In still another appearance, Reagan played U.S. Senator George Graham Vest, a Democrat from Missouri, in the 1964 episode "Tribute to the Dog." The episode focuses on Vest's famous defense of the dog as "man's best friend" in a lawsuit filed by a grandfather (Ralph Moody) and his grandson (Danny Flower) against Carter Johnson (Charles Cooper), a property owner who in a snit kills a playful dog trespassing on Johnson's property.
• Rhodes Reason appeared as Peter Jeffries in the 1955 episode "California's First Ice Man." In the story line, Jeffries turns to the importation of ice from his native Boston, Massachusetts, rather than the exploration of gold, to revive his lost family fortune. He finds Sacramento under the grip of Phineas Colby (I. Stanford Jolley) while he is courting Colby's niece, Laura Colby (Donna Drew), who acts as a nurse seeking ice to relieve suffering of her patients in the heat of summer.
• Tommy Rettig was cast in the 1962 episode "Davy's Friends" as Joel Walter Robison, a fighter for Texas independence. In the story line, a teenaged Robison, called a "friend" of Davy Crockett whom he wishes to avenge, is given a horse by a farmer George Mitchell for use in the fight, makes a singular contribution and is made a first lieutenant by Sam Houston (Stephen Chase). Russell Johnson was cast as Sergeant Tate. After meeting Sam Houston, in April 1836, Robison settles in the capital city of Austin. Years later, Robison was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. Abel Franco (1922–2000) played the captured General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• Alejandro Rey played the bandit Vasquez who had been hounding predatory mine owners/ore transporters such as Kyle, Leo Gordon, but who owed "The Debt" (1963) to the freight hauler "old" Remi Nadeau, Alan Caillou, who had been a Good Samaritan to him.
• Paul Richards appeared as former prospector and bounty hunter Cash Powers in the 1959 segment, "Somewhere Beyond the Vultures." In the story line, Powers is hired by Elizabeth Hayward (Kathleen Crowley) to find her missing fiancé. Soon Powers develops his own interest in Elizabeth as they find that her fiancé had met foul play and death at the hands of Mort Graves (Frank Ferguson) in a non-existent gold mine. In 1962, Richards was cast as Dr. Max Richter in the episode "Bloodline." In that episode, despite reactionary opposition, Parley Baer, Dr. Richter seeks to use a blood transfusion to save the life of his patient—the daughter of a king, Abraham Sofaer, protected by his vizier Ben wright.
• Host Dale Robertson was cast as the Irish-American postmaster of "The Biggest Little Post Office in the World" (1970), Jack Reardon, based in the now ghost town of Shermantown, Nevada. In a duel of wits, a postal inspector, Wesley Hull (Walter Brooke), comes to Shermantown to determine how Reardon can sell $1,500 worth of stamps per month, when the town has only three hundred residents, many of whom are illiterate. With Tol Avery.
• Wayne Rogers and Harry Lauter were cast as George and Henry Schmidtlein in the 1960 episode, "Mission to the Mountains." While seeding mountain streams with trout, the Schmidtleins encounter a suspicious gold prospector named Crandel (John Hoyt) and his daughter, Amy (Wendy Wilde), who develops a romantic interest in George. Wayne Rogers also played the historical General Richard Henry Pratt in the 1965 episode "The Journey," the story of two different views on how to treat Native Americans.
• Gilbert Roland played Dom Pedro II, the emperor of Brazil, who in the 1963 episode, "A Kingdom for a Horse." In the sory line, Dom Pedro in 1876 gets off his train to stretch his legs and is stranded near San Francisco. He comes across a widow (Patricia Huston) with a son (Butch Patrick) and a daughter (Andrea Darvi). The woman doubts his story, but her daughter is charmed by his wit and wisdom.
• Cesar Romero played Agustin Olvera in the 1959 episode, "Olvera." In the story line, Olvera, a Mexican official, must decide between his caballeros and his obligation to the U.S. government during the annexation of California.
• Ned Romero as priest, Father de la Cuesta, must replace the deceased Father Tapis; with his death Joaquin, Joaquín Martínez, and his splinter tribe have become a threat. Father Tapis seems to have ordered "A Gift From Father Tapis"(1970), a barrel organ; but what good can it be at such a time? Nevertheless,the priest and 1 boy, some of whose strength is the true Gift from Father Tapis, refuse to leave with McGrath, David McLean, and the tiny garrison.
• Marion Ross was cast as Martha Sayles in the 1961 episode, "Death Ride," set in a town in the Arizona Territory. Robert Rockwell played lawyer William Thorne, who successfully defends Martha in the death of her stepson. The death was actually caused by Dr. Mitchell (Thayer Roberts) (1902–1968), who mistakenly gave the boy strychnine though he instead had hydrophobia. The townspeople had prejudged Martha until Thorne could find the truth.
• Bing Russell appeared as Scragg in the 1959 episode, "Indian Emily," the story of an Apache young woman, played by Jolene Brand, who died while warning Fort Davis of impending Apache attack.
• Bryan Russell (1952–2016) was cast as a four-year-old future Army General Douglas MacArthur in the 1959 episode, "The Little Trooper," set at Fort Selden, New Mexico Territory, where Douglas' father, then Captain and later General Arthur MacArthur, Jr. (Tom Palmer) (1912–1997), was stationed in the mid-1880s as the fort commander. The story focuses on Trooper Norkul (Leonard Bremen) (1915–1986), who takes a protective interest in young Douglas. Mary Munday was cast as Douglas' mother, Mary.
• Jane Russell was cast as a widow, Mary Taylor, who supplies horses to the Union Army in the 1960 episode, "Splinter Station." Mary encounters a Confederate soldier, Caleb Luck (Claude Akins) who first threatens to kill her. However, Caleb has a change of heart when he decides to help Mary deliver a breached-birth that she names "Lucky" in his honor.

S

• William Schallert appeared eight times on the series. In 1955, he portrayed American Civil War General Jesse Lee Reno in the episode, "Reno." In the story line, two veterans of the Mexican War who served under Reno (played by Frank Griffin and Stanley Clements), honor him with the naming of the second-largest city in Nevada. He played Confederate terrorist Ellis Higby in "Hang 'Em High," both episodes in 1959. Schallert appeared as Sam Clemens, pre-Mark Twain, in the 1962 episode, "The $275,000 Sack of Flour," with James Best as Reuel Colt Gridley who raised $275,000 by repeatedly auctioning off the same sack of flour to benefit the United States Sanitary Commission headed by Henry Whitney Bellows, (Jon Lormer) and is terrorized for it by the terrorist pre-Klu Klux group the Golden Circle.
• Carl Schell appeared as a genius con man "count" who wants to marry the daughter of a rich landowner Jay Novello; but Flinn Roy Engel catches up to him and takes him to jail. The photographer he tells to tell them that he'll be back after some business gets it wrong (intentionally?); so the "count" has to hope they will "Count me in, (rather than) Count me out" (1968).
• Ken Scott was cast in the 1963 episode "The Melancholy Gun" as Johnny Ringo, a gunslinger who despite his mysterious past seeks to lead a more respectable life. However, many want to make their reputations by challenging Ringo's shooting skills. Elizabeth MacRae was cast as his romantic interest, Myra Engles. Denver Pyle played a physician, Harry Lauter the sheriff and Myron Healey a townsman. Scott subsequently played Virgil Earp. Undercover, Earp, using the name "Martin," went to arobbery hideout run by Berle Wilgus (Lynn Bari). One outlaw, Chad Dean Stanton, recognizing a potential rival for Belle's daughter Jennifer Billingsley arouses the gang's suspicions forcing a "Trial at Belle's Springs" (1964), so Earp has to more quickly than he'd hoped.
• James Seay as a ferryman with the only ferry across the Colorado is an impediment for mining engineers desperate to get to San Diego, but whose money was stolen. Led by Charles Poston (Ronald Reagan) and Herman Ehrenberg, the result is "A City is Born" (1965), Poston, AZ.
• Johnny Seven played farmer Carlo Fareli in the 1962 episode, "The Last Shot." In the story line, Carlo buys a farm for the fair price incurring the wrath of the rich town extorsionist real estate mogul; Fareli then eyes a beautiful saloon singer, Della (Grace Lee Whitney), as a wife, angering the bully further .
• Harry Shannon was cast as frontier scout Jim Bridger in the 1958 episode, "Old Gabe," referring to a nickname of Bridger's. Ron Hagerthy played Bridger's grown son, Felix. In the story line, the aging Bridger returns home to find his wife has died in childbirth, and Felix is trying to keep their farm despite an unpaid mortgage. Despite his failing eyesight, Bridger sets forth on a last scouting expedition to make peace with the Sioux and thereby raise funds to retire the mortgage. Roy Engel played Colonel Henry B. Carrington.
• Alex Sharp (1921–2008) was cast as Sheriff Pat Garrett in the 1956 episode, "Pat Garrett's Side of It," referring to the shooting death in New Mexico Territory of the outlaw, Billy the Kid, played by Joel Collins. In the story line, Garrett captures The Kid, who escapes, and then Garrett comes after him at the farmhouse of Pedro Menard "Pete" Maxwell, the father of The Kid's girlfriend. Mack Williams (1907–1965) played General Lew Wallace, and Tyler McVey was cast as cattle baron John Chisum. In addition, Sharp appeared as Juan Flaco, anglicized to John Brown, in the 1957 segment, "California's Paul Revere." When the Mexican–American War broke out in 1846, enemy Mexican forces besieged an American garrison in Los Angeles under Lieutenant Gillespie (Don C. Harvey). Calling for needed reinforcements, Gillespie sends Brown on what turned out to be a four-day ride to Stockton, then San Francisco, to warn of impending doom and obtain the transport of troops by sea. The ride saved Los Angeles from Mexican occupation.
• Karen Sharpe played Linda in the 1953 episode, "Claim Jumpin' Jennie," opposite Irene Burton as Jennie and Wallace Ford as Buck Hansen.
• Richard Simmons played W. Frank Stewart, a silver mining operator who served from 1876 to 1880 as a Nevada state senator for Virginia City (Storey County), in the 1969 episode entitled, "How to Beat a Badman." In the story line, Stewart is determined to gain at a bargain price a silver claim being worked by two young former outlaws. Simmons also played the historical John C. Fremont in the 1966 episode, "Samaritans, Mountain Style." In that story line, Fremont maps a trail to the American West, but his scouts, Kit Carson (Phillip Pine) and Frenchy Godey (Michael Pate) come across a man who has lost everything in an Indian raid. They decide to help the man before resuming their jobs Don Keefer played a newspaperman, Gilpin.
• Penny Singleton was cast as "The Holy Terror" (1963) Maggie Franklin, the story of a family feud and a disputed gold claim found by her husband played by Dick Foran. Sharon Farrell played Maggie's daughter, Cara, whom the mother disowns after Cara marries Billy (Tom Simcox).
• Tom Skerritt was cast in five episodes, as a youthful Emmett Dalton in "Three Minutes to Eternity" (1963), the story of the double 1892 bank robberies in Coffeyville, Kansas, with Forrest Tucker as Bob Dalton and Jim Davis as Grat Dalton with Ed Peck, George Mitchell and Hank Patterson (as the foiler of the robbery); as Dennis Driscoll who volunteers to ride through the mountains to get reinforcements in "Honor the Name Dennis Driscoll" (1964) with Don Haggerty; as young gambler Patrick Hogan who goes against the advice of "The Book" (1965) to win a small fortune at the roulette wheel at a saloon in Calico in San Bernardino, California, with the help of a Chinese friend, Wong Lee (George Takei) and that book, bankrupting the town bully boss Dawson Tris Coffin. The two soon meet a speedy demise at Dawson's behest; as a young Roy Bean, he gets "A Sense of Justice" (1966), with Tris Coffin as his older brother Joshua Bean, in San Diego, where Joshua was the founding mayo. And he appeared as Mark Twain in "Ten Day Millionaires" (1968).
• Hal Smith and Guy Wilkerson as 2 low luck miners help out a man on the run who was "The Man Who Didn't Want Gold" (1967) but might need the sheriff on his trail Gregg Barton.
• William Smith was cast as John Richard Parker, brother of Cynthia Ann Parker, both taken hostage in Texas by the Comanche, in the 1969 episode, "The Understanding." In the story line, Parker contracts the plague, is left for dead by his fellow Comanche warriors, and is rescued by his future wife, Yolanda (Emily Banks), with whom he moves to her native Mexico. Smith also played the outlaw turned sheriff, Henry Newton Brown, a former associate of Billy the Kid, in the 1969 episode "A Restless Man." In the 1970 episode, "The Contract", Smith played Red Eagle with Arlene McQuade as his wife, Little Fawn. The two must use their legal wiles to win a freight contract against the unethical, then violent, tactics of their racist opposition. Richard Bull and Don Megowan also appeared in this episode. And see Soon-Taek Oh's entry.
• Julie Sommars played Roman Catholic Sister Blandina Segale in the 1966 episode, "The Fastest Nun in the West." In the story line, Blandina seeks justice for a killer, despite intense monied pressure by George Burnet Michael Constantine for his lynching. Don Haggerty was cast as Sheriff Wheeler.
• Arthur Space was cast as failed gold prospector Herb Phinney in the 1954 episode, "The Rainbow Chaser." Kay Stewart (1919–2002) played Herb's long suffering wife, Lucretia, who takes over his job as a store clerk to make ends meet. When Herb begins to sit around the house all day with no attempt at working, Lucretia stakes him on another gold search just to be rid of him. Jimmy Hawkins played one of their two sons. Apparently, Herb never found any gold and dropped all contact with his family thereafter. Space was subsequently cast as Ben Hudson in the 1959 episode "Hang 'Em High," the story of the laying of the transcontinental telegraph across the western United States at the beginning of the American Civil War.
• Fay Spain as "A Calamity Called Jane" (1966)Calamity Jane, is introduced to Wild Bill Hickok, Rhodes Reason, by Hickok's manager Charlie Utter, Ed Peck, The episode centers on the time Calamity was in Hickok's fledgling Wild West show. It ends with Hickok's assassination by Jack McCall in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.
• Warren Stevens as Doc Holliday schemes to sell lead bars as stolen gold bullion, "Doc Halliday's gold bars" (1966), to an unethical Chicago investment banker, Tol Avery, hits a snag discovered by a bank teller, William Christopher.
• Jeffrey Stone, the inspiration for Walt Disney's Prince Charming, was cast as Dave Reid, a Philadelphian in the Death Valley country, in the 1961 episode, "The Salt War." In the story line, Reid tries to convince a rancher for whom he has romantic feelings, Rachel Emory (Lenore Roberts) (1929–1978), not to begin charging the public for salt on the Emory lands. Reid narrowly escapes a lynching as Rachel rides to his defense.
• John Pickard's character has filed a mining claim which conflicts with that of Curry's which was sent in by mail: but Mrs. Pritkin Hope Summers alerts Phil Curry that his dad's mining claim may have been illegally help up which was about to result in a dueling "Feud at Dome Rock" (1962).
• Frank Sutton as self-proclaimed gunslinger "Diamondfield Jack" (10/1/1963) refused to give up that persona even to defend himself against a murder charge but was ably defended by future governor James H. Hawley Edward Binns.

T

• Robert Tafur (1915–2005), Tom Hernández, and Ernestine Barrier are cast as Antonio Fernandez, Young Antonio, and Old Isabella, respectively, in the 1955 episode, "The Valencia Cake." In the story line, a Spanish land-grant family faces the loss of its estate and one million acres of land in the New Mexico Territory unless the original deed granting them ownership can be found. Oddly, the deed turns up at the bottom of a cake baked by the staff.
• Gloria Talbott appeared as Mary Kileen in the 1961 episode, "Queen of Spades," directed by Darren McGavin. In the story line, Mary preys upon men whose insecurity she uses to get them to fight over her. After one of the men is killed, Mary's blood-lust is further emboldened as she schemes for a gunfight between Billy Madsen (L. Q. Jones) and Billy Leslie (Tom Drake). In a 1965 episode, "Kate Melville and the Law," Talbott played Kate Melville, a temporary woman sheriff and the daughter of Sheriff Will Melville (Dick Foran). She has clashed with a Judge Lander (Richard Anderson) over her frontier justice; but When Caleb, Hank Patterson, is found dead, she gets an object lesson in getting the real criminal.
• William Tannen played the historical Ike Clanton in the 1964 episode, "After the OK Corral," with Jim Davis as Wyatt Earp. Tannen previously played deputy Hal Norton on the ABC/Desilu series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, with Hugh O'Brian in the title role of Marshal Earp.
• Buck Taylor, already cast as Newly O'Brien on Gunsmoke, played a lumberjack, Will Zane, in the 1969 episode, "The Taming of Trudy Bell," with Valerie DeCamp as Trudy, the daughter of Zane's boss. When Zane spanks Trudy at a social gathering for her conceit, he expects to lose his job. Robert Anderson (1920–1996), played Trudy's father, H. J. Bell.
• Dub Taylor starred or co-starred several times. Once as Jesse, he gets tired of losing to Gopher Walter Burke and discovers "One Fast Injun" (1966), Cherokee Bob, Joseph Perry, with whom he wins but discovers his friends aren't as friendly. It looks like his friends in Moores Flat will come around if Bob will beat Nevada City's Soda Bill Robert Sorrells, but he's scared Bob won't; so he tries to hedge his bets (with Don Haggerty).
• Robert Taylor appeared a number of times. In one as Charles Poston his friend Charles Meyer, Oscar Beregyi, tries to stop him performing a wedding since Father McCabe Willard Sage is coming from the bishop to announce Poston is working illegally, hence to make it "The Day All Marriages were Canceled" (1967). Also see the main article about his roles as Porter Stockton and as "Major Horace Bell" (1967) in which he rescues a man from lynching by the brother, Lonny Chapman, of a stalker of Rosie, Susan Hart, and defends him before Judge Wattles, Robert Cornthwaite.
• Lorna Thayer was cast as Jessie Benton Frémont, loyal wife of John C. Fremont (Roy Engel), in the 1960 episode "The Gentle Sword." In the story line, the Frémonts are in California during the gold rush. The couple becomes involved in a mining claim dispute; Mrs. Frémont stares down organized claim jumpers.
• Marshall Thompson was cast in the 1964 episode, "The Streets of El Paso" as Mayor Ben Dowell, who can't get the town to either fix or pay a tax to fix the water system. He agrees to the sale of the only street in El Paso, Texas, to finance it; but smitten Nancy Patricia Breslin has to save his skin from irate citizens when the new anti-tax owners charge a toll.
• Peter M. Thompson (1920–2001) was cast as a minister, John Brownell, in the 1956 episode, "The Sinbuster." In the story line, Brownell tries to impact the moral atmosphere of the western town of Mojave in Kern County, California. He finds at least one friend in the community, Ellie Todd (Lyn Thomas), the organist. His first convert, Gideon Flack (Don O'Kelly), is accused of murder.
• Kenneth Tobey was cast as Colonel Lake in the 1960 episode, "The Deserters.", Lake captures five deserters from the Union Army who would be shot. But Vince Dennis Patrick is grateful Lake had not killed his brother in the capture and agrees to help Lake. A regiment of rebels helps persuade the others to fight also. The men are re-classified as Away Without Leave, served six-month sentences, and then volunteered to join Lake in the formation of a famous rescue squad.
• Regis Toomey was cast as Gus Lammerson in the 1961 episode, "The Holdup-Proof Safe." Lammerson owns a store which contains a safe prematurely declared holdup-proof. Judson Pratt appeared as Sheriff Griswold.
• Aline Towne as Fanny Osbourne, the future Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, the mother of two children in a loveless marriage in San Francisco meets Stevenson (Don Reardon, died 2004) in France where Stevenson was trying to recuperate from lung problems. Going to San Francisco, he worked frantically in the production of a large volume of literary works. The secret of the "Great Amulet" (1958) is revealed at the conclusion of the episode.
• Harry Townes played Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, in the 1960 episode, "His Brother's Keeper." Edwin Booth tries to stage a play in Downieville, California, six months after Lincoln's assassination and encounters opposition from townspeople, such as Hite Rogan Jack Mather. Alan Baxter and Don Grady, as Jeb and Calvin Hayes, play father/son protectors of Booth.
• Beverly Tyler and Mark Dana (1920–2015) were cast in the 1956 episode, "Escape" as Evelyn and Harry Neilson, a couple on the verge of divorce because Evelyn objects to living in remote military camps, where Harry is assigned. They are reconciled inadvertently when an escaped killer, Burke (John L. Cason), holds them hostage.

V–Z

• Rudy Vallée appeared in "The Friend" (1968) who advises Mike McCluskie (Robert Taylor q.v.) not to take the job of sheriff of Newton, Kansas. But McCluskie does anyway and befriends an orphan who overhears 2 gang members, Jeff Morris and Paul Sorensen, plot against McCluskie.
• Victoria Vetri played Sacajawea in the 1967 episode, "The Girl Who Walked the West." Victor French was cast as her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, Dick Simmons as Meriwether Lewis, and Don Matheson as William Clark.
• John Vivyan guest starred as Jeremy Whitlock in the 1962 episode, "Showdown at Kamaaina Flats," set in Hawaii. As Whitlock he devises a scheme to defy his captain (Lane Bradford), who ordered Whitlock to retrieve native peoples as slaves. Also See Yvonne De Carlo's entry.
• Peter Walker (born 1927) was cast as Kit Carson, Gardner McKay as the villainous Pierre Shunar, and Iron Eyes Cody as a trapper in the 1958 episode, "The Big Rendezvous". Laurie Carroll (born 1933) was cast as the young Indian woman, Waa-Nibe, with whom Carson is smitten.
• Patrick Waltz (1924–1972) was cast as Charlie Bates in the unusual 1957 episode, "Fifty Years a Mystery," set in the since ghost town of Bodie, California. In the story line, Bates in his sleep recalls the exact occurrences of a stagecoach robbery thirty-five miles from where he was sleeping. Years later, it is revealed that radio waves may have caused the bizarre phenomenon. Rosemarie Ace (1930–1996) played Bates' wife, the former Edith Anders, the daughter of his employer.
• Richard Webb was cast as Thomas Francis Meagher in the 1960 episode, "The General Who Disappeared." In the story line, General Meagher, who distinguished himself in the American Civil War, is the acting governor of the Montana Territory, in which capacity he seeks to clean up corrupt politics.
• Alan Wells (1926–2008) portrayed Tom Powell in the 1955 episode, "The Seventh Day." In the story line, a wagon train splits in two when Powell, the captain, refuses to travel on Sundays. Frank Hitchcock (Michael Moore) leads the rival group which includes Powell's love interest, Mary Ann Jessup (Barbara Lang). The wagon train reunites after Powell proves that by resting on Sundays, which refreshed both the settlers and the animals, the party could still travel as far in six days as in seven.
• Paul Wexler played Clem Scobie, a war hero, in the 1955 episode, "The Homeliest Man in Nevada." In the story line, Clem's looks at first discourage Mona Sherman (Patricia Joiner), who came to Nevada from Emporia, Kansas, from accepting his romantic gestures. When Clem is badly burned in a mining explosion, however, Mona rushes to his side and confesses her love for him.
• Dennis Whitcomb (born 1941) co-wrote or wrote several episodes and starred, in one he wrote, as, Jack London, in which London wants to leave the cannery slavery. With the help of a black mentor, he opposes bullies including French Frank (Ken Mayer) (1918–1985) who "owns" a saloon girl, (Jane Zachary), plus the monopolistic, grafting oyster industry, becoming the "Prince of the Oyster Pirates" (1968).
• Grace Lee Whitney played Nellie Cashman in the 1969 episode, "The Angel of Tombstone." In the story line, Cashman and several men from Tombstone, Arizona, travel to Baja California in search of gold found by a Mexican prospector. On reaching the site, Cashman learns how a Catholic mission has been quietly financing its charitable work. Gregg Barton, Tris Coffin, and Joaquín Martínez also had roles in this episode.
• Peter Whitney was cast in the 1961 episode, "Who's Fer Divide?," as trapper Joseph Meek, who campaigns for the annexation of Oregon Territory despite a price Kittredge,(Frank Wilcox) has placed on his head (with Dabbs Greer). Whitney was cast as "Peter the Hunter,"(1964). In the story line, Peter has three savvy daughters, the oldest of whom, Tulie (Julie Sommars), saves greenhorn Jim Beaumont (Anthony Costello) (1938–1983), from starvation but becomes smitten with the buffoon. Whitney played Judge Roy Bean in the 1965 Death Valley Days episode "A Picture of a Lady," with Francine York as Lillie Langtry and Paul Fix as Bean's friend, Dr. Louis Lathrop. In the story line, the ailing Judge Bean idolizes Lillie's portrait. She visited Langtry, Texas, which Bean claimed to have named in her honor, but only after the judge's death.
• Collin Wilcox as "The Sage Hen" (1968) is in peril from 2 bad guys, Don Haggerty and Don Megowan)who interrupt her washing.
• Robert J. Wilke as the courageous but aging Sheriff Tom McBain is warned by his buddy (Bill Zuckert) not to try to arrest young cut-throat Sam Bolt (Sherwood Price) to transport him for trial for murder in Denver. When McBain prays for divine help, he's overheard by Bolt's sidekick but also McBain's friend, the "Brute Angel" (1966) Pony Cragin (Jim Davis) who works to even the odds. Jean Engstrom was cast as McBain's wife.
• Jean Willes as pioneer woman, Amelia Monk, is a totally different kind of trophy wife to her husband Titus (George D. Wallace). So she must handle a "Siege at Amelia's Kitchen" (1967), as her eastern teen-aged stepson, Warren Monk (Dennis Oliveri) adjusts to the nitty-gritty values of the Arizona Territory of the late 19th century. A frontier kind of siege might do the trick.
• Don Wilson, the announcer for Jack Benny, appeared as a flim-flam preacher in the 1959 episode, "Gates Ajar Morgan." In the story line, Morgan promotes a false religious philosophy based on the novel The Gates Ajar. He must confess the sham to save his friend and benefactor from a lynch mob. The episode also features Chris Alcaide and Sue Randall.
• Michael Witney was cast as Wild Bill Hickok who succeeds Thomas J. "Bear River" Smith, the sheriff of Abilene, Kansas with "No Gun Behind His Badge,"(1965) with host Ronald Reagan as Smith. With Barry Kelley, Mort Mills and Woodrow Parfrey as the town council who want some law and order but not too much, and Leo Gordon as the gunslinger defeated twice by Smith. Also as Peter Lassen, he faces lynching when "The Other side of the Mountain" (1967) is too cloudy to see the promised land, with only Joel Flagg (John Carter) left to save him.
• Howard Wright (1896–1990) was cast in the 1959 episode, "Price of a Passport," as the historical fur trapper and Kentucky native, Sylvester Pattie (1782–1828), the first American to be buried in California. Donald Barton (1925–2002) played his son, James Ohio Pattie. In the story line, the Patties arrive in California to trap but are ordered to jail by a superstitious governor, played by Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. The character Carlotta (Arianne Ulmer) befriends them in jail. Ultimately, their medical knowledge benefits the community during an epidemic.
• Than Wyenn was cast as the storekeeper Isaccs in the 1959 episode "A Town Is Born," referring to Nogales, Arizona Territory. Jean Howell played his wife, Ruth, and Jan Arvan (1913–1979) was cast as Mexican President Benito Juárez, who leads the fight against forces of the Emperor Maximilian. In the story line, Isaacs hides gold for the Mexican government to keep it out of the hands of Maximilian's agents.
• Patrice Wymore appeared as Fay Morgan in the 1959 episode, "Forty Steps to Glory."
• H. M. Wynant was cast as lieutenant (later General) Philip Sheridan in the 1961 episode, "The Red Petticoat," which Sheridan used as a symbol of the racist tendencies of the respective peoples Sheridan and his blood brother/scout Kahlu (Allan Jaffe) (1928–1989) had to fight to bring peace and prosperity to the Pacific northwest that was under Sheridan's protection.
• Alan Young played consumptive John Batterson Stetson who goes west to either die or be healed in the 1962 episode, "The Hat That Won the West". With the help of the trapper he accompanies on a hunting trek Don Haggerty, he renews his health and love of life. After an avalanche ruins a season's worth of work, his ability to make his own hats promises him a prosperous future, with Lee Van Cleef in a supporting role.
• Tony Young played Corbin who has lost his faith and dreams. He is knocked unconscious when thrown from his horse (which may have been spooked by the "Phanton Procession" (1963)) and then is nursed back to health and dreams by orphaned Maria Míriam Colón; her brother Miguel, Eugene Iglesias, has fallen under Miller's, Harry Lauter's, evil spell; unfortunately Corbin and the padre, Edward Colmans, probably can't save him.
• Victor Sen Yung, who played Hop Sing, the ranch cook on Bonanza, was cast as the compassionate Chinese restaurant owner, Quong Kee, in Tombstone, Arizona, in the 1957 episode, "Quong Kee." In the story line, an aging Quong Kee recalls how in 1881 he brought together Art Gresham (Walter Kelley) and his mother, played by Mary Newton, both of Boston, with the saloon musician Ann Bailey (Eugenia Paul), who after a topsy turvy romance became Mrs. Art Gresham.
• Robert Yuro played the outlaw Curly Bill Brocius in the 1968 episode, "A Mule ... Like the Army's Mule." Sam Melville was cast as Army Lt. Jason Beal and Luke Halpin as the young outlaw Sandy King, who was befriended by Beal. John Pickard portrayed Baldy Johnson. Also as the Texas gunfighter King Fisher the "King of the Uvalde Road," (1970) (with Dale Robertson as host and actor in the role of "Harry") Fisher tries to keep the mail from being delivered to Uvalde, Texas, from San Antonio. Also he appeared as a violent hired hand who feels romantically aggrieved; Irene Tedrow, as Granny Colvin and her son Herb Bill Zuckert, are hoping Herb's daughter, Karen Carlson, will have the "Pioneer Pluck" (1970) to face him down.

References

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