Between the 1950s and 1970s, the sound of horse hooves and gunfire took over our living rooms. The Western genre had a major rise on television, and it all started with The Lone Ranger in 1949.
It continued with other cowboys, heroes, outlaws, and shootouts in hit series that included Bonanza, The Rifleman, Rawhide, Wagon Train, and more.
At one point, there were more than 30 different Western series airing in primetime during the late ’50s and early ’60s. It was one of the most popular and exciting genres on television. Kids wanted to be like them, and adults wanted to escape with them.
With all the iconic Western stars, no one knew how to cowboy quite like Bonanza’s Lorne Greene. Even producer George Schlatter, best known for his work on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, agreed that Greene was the best man of the Old West.
“It’s Lorne Greene’s West,” Schlatter said in a 1965 interview with The World News. “Who better epitomizes the West than Ben Cartwright?”
Greene played the role of Ben Cartwright on the hit series, Bonanza, from 1959 to 1973. His character was the patriarch of the Cartwright family on Bonanza. He represented the ideal of the Western hero: strong, moral, and deeply principled.
“Cowboys were vitally important to the development of the West,” Greene said. “Our country wouldn’t have attained the population and civilization it has out here if it hadn’t been for the cowboys and cattle. But they don’t do tricks with their guns. That was strictly an innovation that started with the movies.”
According to Greene, a cowboy’s gun was just as important a piece of equipment as his horse or rope, but it wasn’t realistic.
Many people picture his character, who helped set the tone for how the West should be. In Greene’s mind, the most important takeaway was the Western moral code, which he tried to showcase on TV every week for thousands of viewers.
“The West, as we’ve seen it on television and in movies, has, of course, vanished, but it survives in the imaginations of people,” Greene said. “I’m sure that’s why the Western, as an art form, has always been so successful. It’s a form of escapism, a time when problems were strictly those of survival and not as highly psychological as those we face today.”