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Richard Boone had an excellent response when he was accused of ''giving up'' another television series to play Paladin in Have Gun - Will Travel
If you're going to start an argument with Richard Boone, at least come prepared.
Television is a fickle business. What's popular with the audience may not be popular with the networks, and sometimes a show's time on air is cut short, through no fault of the cast and crew. Still, that doesn't mean that viewers don't reserve the right to complain about the departure.
When Richard Boone began working on Have Gun - Will Travel, he was already familiar with television, having previously starred in the NBC series Medic. While Medic was popular among viewers and had even won Boone an Emmy nomination, the show met an untimely demise when it was canceled. One magazine editor actually wrote to Boone when he joined Have Gun, seemingly placing the fault on Boone himself.
"Please advise why you are giving up a great show like Medic for a Western series?" the editor wrote.
"I prefer doing a show that's on the air," wrote Boone back. "I changed characters for the simple economic fact that actors have to eat, too."
But while Boone was as caught off guard by the cancelation of Medic as anyone else, he seemed to land on his feet, pleased with the direction his career was moving in by the time he began playing Paladin.
"Selfishly I can't say I'm sorry the show ended because this new Western series is a much better opportunity for me," he said. "But I'm grateful to Medic for making me known and because I believe it contributed something to the stature of TV."
"We deliberately set out to create an elegantly deadly character as different as possible from any other mustache," said Boone. "It was sort of the spice in the stew. We gave him an education, with a knowledge of foreign languages and the classics so he wouldn't appear to be just another guy who had spent his entire life on the main street of Dodge City. He's not ashamed to take a drink or make a pass at a doll and even his judgment of right from wrong is based on his own personal ethics. I think he's quite a character."
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