Maverick

Created by Roy Huggins (who also created The Fugitive, 77 Sunset Strip, and The Rockford Files), Maverick was a Warner Brothers television western series ran on ABC-TV from August 22, 1957 until July 8, 1962. James Garner starred as Bret Maverick, joined early in the series by Jack Kelly as his brother, Bart Maverick.

They played anti-hero gambling poker players who used their wits and humor, resorting to fighting and gunplay as a last resort. Sometimes episodes would focus on both, but frequently they would spotlight one brother or the other.

Garner left the series in 1960, and he was replaced by Roger Moore, who joined the cast as cousin Beau for the 1960-61 season. Robert Colbert played brother Brent in two episodes in 1961-1962, and Kelly continued for the run of the original series.

Garner and Kelly reprised their roles as Bret and Bart for the 1978 TV movie The New Maverick which led to James Garner starring in Bret Maverick, a short-lived NBC-TV series in 1981-1982.

The show’s popular theme song was written by David Buttolah and Paul Webster, and it even made a return in the incidental music when Warner Brothers released a Maverick feature film May 20, 1994.

Directed by Richard Donner, Mel Gibson starred as Bret. Jodie Foster played gambler Annabelle Bransford and James Garner played Marshal Zane Cooper, who in the end turned out to be, of course, Maverick’s “dear old Pappy.”

There were 19 Dell Four Color comic books of Maverick with photo covers between April 1958 and June 1962.