The Big Valley
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The Big Valley was a television Western which ran on ABC from 1965 to 1969.
It starred Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley, the widowed matriarch of the Barkley family of Stockton, California. Richard Long played Jarrod Thomas Barkley, her eldest son and a respected attorney. Hot-tempered younger son Nick Barkley, who managed the family ranch, was played by Peter Breck.
(Both Long and Breck had been regulars for a short time on another classic Western series, Maverick, although in different seasons; Long had played "Gentleman Jack Darby" to pick up the slack when Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. began 77 Sunset Strip and could no longer play "Dandy Jim Buckley," while Breck had taken over the role of "Doc Holliday" when Gerald Mohr was unavailable.)
Linda Evans played Audra, Victoria's only daughter.
In the first episode, Lee Majors was introduced as Heath, the third, and illegitimate son of Victoria's late husband; Heath gradually gained acceptance from the rest of the Barkley clan. This one episode got around the usual restrictions on use of profanity in television shows of the 1960s and 1970s in which Heath, responds to his half-brother on being asked whom he is, that he is "Your father's bastard son." The character of Heath originally rode into town one day from the mining area of Strawberry. Later on his new stepmother Victoria Barkley goes to find out about his past by visiting Heath's surviving relatives from his mother's side of the family. It was learned that Tom Barkley had never known he had fathered Heath. Incidentally, Tom Barkley was killed in 1870 six years before Heath came to Stockton looking for his family roots. It was mentioned that Heath had grown up in Calaveras County. During the first season Lee Majors character Heath struggled with his new found family and name. The youngest Barkley son was Eugene (Charles Briles), a medical student studying at Berkeley. He was seen sporadically in only five first season episodes and then written out. Only once was his name ever mentioned again (by Victoria in a conversation with Jarrod). The regular cast was rounded out by Napoleon Whiting, who played Silas, the Barkleys' majordomo.
Guest stars included Julie Adams, Jack Albertson, Marty Allen, Richard Anderson, Lew Ayres, Diane Baker, Joe Don Baker, Anne Baxter, Milton Berle, Charles Bronson, John Carradine, Royal Dano, Bruce Dern, Colleen Dewhurst, Bradford Dillman, Richard Dreyfuss, Maurice Evans, Harold Gould, Robert Goulet, Lee Grant, James Gregory, Buddy Hackett, Dennis Hopper, Ron Howard, Jill St. John, George Kennedy, Yaphet Kotto, Martin Landau, Cloris Leachman, Robert Loggia, Barbara Luna, Carol Lynley, Gavin MacLeod, Leslie Nielsen, Simon Oakland, Warren Oates, Arthur O'Connell, Susan Oliver, Lou Rawls, Beah Richards, Wayne Rogers, Katharine Ross, Pernell Roberts, Bing Russell, William Shatner, Susan Strasberg, Fritz Weaver, Adam West, James Whitmore and Gerald Mohr, who guest starred in an episode called "Flight from San Miguel" as Dr Raoul Mendez, a Mexican rebel leader trying to escape the country. This was to be Mohr's last-ever TV Western. He died of a heart attack in Stockholm, Sweden, three months after the episode was made.
One accidental running gag (that also occurred on the TV western Bonanza) is that in every episode in which one of the Barkley sons got seriously involved with a woman, as soon as he got married, she was killed off or died gruesomely in the same episode. As with other shows of the time the male characters had love interests but usually the storylines lasted only for one episode then the girl was never seen again.
Lee Majors later recounted on "The Tonight Show" how he was justly exhorted by Barbara Stanwyck, after a star complex he had developed adversely affected production/ filming of the series.
The stirring "Big Valley" theme was created by George Duning. Some of the directors of photograhy during the series were William E. Snyder, A.S.C., Wilfrid M. Cline, A.S.C., and Chas E. Burke, A.S.C. "The Big Valley" was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman. The producers were Jules Levy, Arthur Gardner, and Arnold Laven, and the associate producer was Lou Morheim. Actor and director Paul Henreid, of Casablanca fame, directed a number of episodes. The series was produced by Four Star Television for the ABC Television Network.
Dell Comics published a short-lived comic book for 6 issues in 1966-69. (the last issue reprinted the first, and came out two years after issue #5). All issued had photo covers.
