When I glanced at my list of
TV Shows Featuring Indians, I realized I didn't know anything about some of them. I figured I'd better do a little research to educate myself and my readers about them.
So I'm going to take a decade-by-decade look at some of the obscure series that have prominent Indian characters. First, from the 1950s:
Broken Arrow (TV series)Broken Arrow was a Western series which told a fictionalized account of the historical relationship between Indian agent Tom Jeffords (played by John Lupton) and the Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise (played by Michael Ansara). It was based on the novel Blood Brother by Elliott Arnold, which was made into the movie Broken Arrow in 1950.
The show ran on ABC in prime time from 1956 through 1958 on Tuesdays at 9 PM Eastern time. Repeat episodes were shown by ABC on Sunday afternoons during the 1959-60 season. Selected repeats were then shown once again in prime time (on Sunday evenings) during the summer of 1960.Ansara played Indians several times in his career: in
The Lone Ranger,
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, and
Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans. He also appeared in
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,
Lost in Space,
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,
Land of the Giants, and
The Time Tunnel. Trekkies know him as Kang from the
TOS episode "Day of the Dove."
3 comments:
Ansara is an Arab-American (born in Syria). He played Kang once in "Deep Space 9", and possibly "Voyager". I remember him well as Elric the Techno-Mage in "Babylon 5", in which he looked like himself (no Klingon makeup)
Writerfella here --
The original 1950 film BROKEN ARROW starred Jimmy Stewart as Tom Jeffers and Jeff Chandler as Cochise. Interestingly, Chandler was 1/4 Apache.
Michael Ansara also is best known for portraying Quarlo Gobregny in Harlan Ellison's award-winning episode of the 1960s TV series, THE OUTER LIMITS, titled "Soldier."
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
POSTSCRIPTUM -- After the success of THE TERMINATOR, James Cameron in an interview admitted taking inspiration from that 'Soldier' episode of THE OUTER LIMITS and immediately was sued by Harlan Ellison. The settlement in Harlan's favor never was disclosed and Cameron had to amend every existing print of the film to read,
"Acknowledgment is made to the life work of Harlan Ellison..."
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Post a Comment