While there have been tons of great Western TV series over the years, the legendary John Wayne rarely appeared on the small screen. Most of the time he was on TV, he was playing himself rather than acting in character. There was one notable exception, though: an episode of the highly influential series “Wagon Train.”
“Wagon Train” premiered on NBC in 1957 and ran for eight seasons over eight years. The show followed a group of settlers as their wagon train headed west from Missouri, and each episode would have them encounter new people in a new place on their journey. Interestingly, when Gene Roddenberry pitched “Star Trek,” he compared it to “Wagon Train,” with the sci-fi series swapping out the Wild West setting for its many alien homeworlds.
Wayne makes a cameo appearance in “The Colter Craven Story,” a Season 4 episode of “Wagon Train” that aired on November 23, 1960. The hour-long story revolves around a doctor who crosses paths with the wagon train — the appropriately named Dr. Craven (Carleton Young). Craven has lost his nerve and started drinking rather than practicing medicine, but he becomes inspired to get back on the wagon (pun intended) when he hears the story of how Ulysses Grant (Paul Birch) overcame his own drinking problem. Wayne features in this flashback as General William Tecumseh Sherman. While he goes by the pseudonym “Michael Morris” in the credits and appears mostly in shadow, his voice is unmistakable.
John Ford directed John Wayne in Wagon Train
“Wagon Train” starred Ward Bond, an old college friend of John Wayne’s who, among other projects, had acted in a few films directed by the legendary director John Ford. And “Wagon Train” was actually inspired by “Wagon Master,” one of Ford’s movies.
It was because of this connection that “Wagon Train” was able to get Wayne to make a rare television appearance — and with Ford himself behind the camera, no less. A newspaper article from 1960 (via Google News) characterizes Ford’s decision to direct the episode as a favor to his friend, but there might have been a little more going on. Ford would regularly hang out on the “Wagon Train” set while visiting Bond and other old colleagues, and the master filmmaker frequently criticized the quality of the TV Western. Eventually, Bond challenged him to put up or shut up — and take the reins himself.
Ford accepted the challenge, shooting “The Colter Craven Story” in six days rather than the five given to regular directors. In that time, he shot enough footage to make “The Colter Craven Story” a two-part episode, though, ultimately, it ran as one. Sadly, Bond himself would never see the episode his friends directed and guest-starred in, as he died on November 5, 1960, just a few weeks before it aired.
