Guess Who Ocasionally Topped Ed Sullivan & Steve Allen On Sundays?

Guess Who Often Topped Ed Sullivan & Steve Allen On Sundays?

When ‘Maverick’ debuted in September of 1957 on ABC against these two ratings giants, the show often beat out ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and ‘The Steve Allen Show’. James Garner was Brett Maverick, the shows one and only star, BUT…a few episodes into the first season, the producers realized that it took more than a week to shoot and edit the show. Their solution was to add Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) as Garner’s younger brother and use two crews to shoot two episodes at the same time. The show’s sponsors were furious so to help the transition, both Garner and Kelly would film opening vignettes to each others episodes and would occasionally appear together. In 1960, James Garner sued the producer, Warner Brothers, for breach of contract, arising from his suspension during the writers’ strike of that year. Warner claimed that there were no scripts available during the strike, and were, therefore justified in suspending Garner without pay. However, it was learned during court testimony that the studio had secretly obtained approximately 100 television scripts during the strike. Eventually, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled in favor of Garner, and he was released from his contract with the series. The part of Beau Maverick, an English cousin was offered to Sean Connery, but when he turned it down, the part went to another 007…Roger Moore. This was a one of a kind show, built by a one of a kind actor, James Garner and after he left, the show slowly died in the ratings and was gone by early 1962.

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