A John Wayne Western Led To A Short-Lived Spin-Off Starring Jim Davis

John Wayne became arguably the biggest star of Hollywood's Golden Age via his mythic portrayals of Western heroes. In the 1920s and 1930s, the genre was the stuff of serials and programmers (some of which featured the Duke), but they were transformed into pure cinema when John Ford made Wayne the co-lead of "Stagecoach" opposite Claire Trevor. The unfussy yet undeniably magnetic actor went on to make a string of Western classics that included "Red River," "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," "Rio Bravo," "The Searchers," and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." There was no one bigger or more iconic.

Almost to a tee, the rise and decline of Wayne's career follows the trajectory of the traditional Hollywood Western. When audiences got a taste for the luridness of Spaghetti Westerns and the revisionism of filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellmman, Wayne, who looked a good ten years older than he was due to a fierce battle with cancer that cost him a lung, found himself making elegiac films that foresaw the end of an era and the death of the man who exemplified it. Some of these movies were fun ("True Grit," for which he won his only Best Actor Oscar), while others were old-fashioned slogs ("Cahill U.S. Marshal").

The best of this underwhelming bunch might've been Mark Rydell's "The Cowboys." Based on the novel by William Dale Jennings, the film follows a group of schoolboys who've been hired by a surly old rancher for a 400-mile cattle drive. The film is notable for two reasons: It features a majestic Western score by John Williams (three years prior to becoming the toast of the industry with "Jaws"), and, most importantly, it's one of the few films in which the Duke was killed on screen. And he's not just killed, he's shot in the back by an evil and cowardly Bruce Dern.

The film received mutedly positive reviews, but it was a box office hit at a time when Wayne needed one. And it was big enough that ABC thought it might work as a television series.

Television veteran David Dortort had more than established his Western bona fides as the creator of the long-running "Bonanza," so when he took on a series version of "The Cowboys," there was reason to believe that, despite the genre's declining popularity across the board, it might catch on. Dortort wisely dispensed with Wayne's Wil Anderson character and instead placed the boys under the supervision of the character's wife, Annie (Diana Douglas). For the male authority figure, Dortort hired genre veteran Jim Davis (who'd go on to play Jock Ewing in "Dallas"). Meanwhile, Robert Carradine and A Martinez reprised their roles from the film, and were joined by up-and-comer Clint Howard.

"The Cowboys" premiered on February 6, 1974, and had its network cattle drive cut short after 12 episodes. Typically, a show with this kind of pedigree would've received at least a bare-bones home video release by now, but as of 2025, there's nothing out there. It's not even on YouTube. I can't tell if it ever aired in syndication, but even if it did, it probably would've run before the proliferation of VCRs, which explains the absence of video rips.

Surely, some "Star Trek" completist out there would like to rescue the series from obscurity, if only to preserve the guest appearance from DeForest Kelley. Until that time arrives, "The Cowboys" television series will remain lost in the television wilderness.