Two of the most popular genres in television in the mid-1960s were spies and Westerns. So it made perfect sense to combine the pair into a fresh, exciting series, The Wild Wild West. This is the behind-the-scenes story of this classic series.
“Royale” Rights
When Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale was published in 1953, a great number of people in Hollywood saw the potential of it. Both on the large and small screens. The following year, CBS bought the television rights to the novel for $1,000 ($11,000 adjusted for inflation). Gregory Ratoff and Michael Garrison purchased the movie rights for $6,000 ($70,00 adjusted for inflation) a year after that, in 1955.
After securing the rights Garrison and Ratoff turned to finance the movie, which was slow going for several years. In 1960, Hedda Hopper announced that the movie would be made with English actor Peter Finch as James Bond. However, when Ratoff died from leukemia on December 14 of that year Garrison and Ratoff’s widow decided to sell the rights to Casino Royale to Charles K. Feldman for $75,000 ($775,000 adjusted for inflation).
Series Idea
With the breakout blockbuster success of Goldfinger in 1964 Garrison felt regret about letting the rights to the first Bond novel slip through his fingers. He made his way to CBS and pitched an idea that would blend two of the most popular genres going at the time into a new television series he pitched as “James Bond on Horseback”.
The premise of the series centered on two Secret Service agents, James West, and Artemus Gordon. Together, they solved crimes and foiled the plans of megalomaniacal villains trying to take over part, or all, of the United States during the Grant administration. Like James Bond, the pair employed the use of various gadgets to aid them in their adventures. These gadgets would be housed inside their train, The Wanderer. Originally called “The Wild West,” it was changed to The Wild Wild West because it sounded better.
Casting
For the lead role of Jim West, Garrison chose Rory Calhoun. Calhoun was no stranger to Westerns, having appeared in many throughout the 1950s. These included: Rogue River (1951), Way of a Goucho (1952), and The Silver Whip (1953). He also appeared on the television series The Texan (1958-60). However, his screen test was shockingly poor and he lost the role.
With Calhoun out, Garrison turned his attention to Hawaiian Eye (1959-63) star Robert Conrad who was signed to the role with a salary of $5,000 per week ($48,000 adjusted for inflation). Because Conrad was only 5’8″ he wore three-inch heels on the series. The CBS casting office was instructed not to hire any women over 5’6″ for the show.
The role of the gadget-making Artemis Gordon went to Ross Martin who had played a similar sidekick-type role on the CBS series Mr. Lucky (1959-60). Since Gordon was a master of disguise Martin would draw what his character would look like that week. He would then take the sketch to make-up artist Don Schoenfeld, and together they molded his face until it looked like the drawing.
“I have run a wider gamut than even those acknowledged masters of disguise, Paul Muni and Lon Chaney. Sometimes I feel like a one man repertory company.”
– Ross Martin
For the weekly guest stars, many familiar faces who appeared on other genre shows of the era including Batman, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Star Trek routinely appeared on The Wild Wild West such as Burgess Meredith, Victor Buono, Richard Kiel, Sandra Wells, Sherry Jackson, Ida Lupino, Ricardo Montalban, Leslie Nielsen, Michael Dunn, Arlene Martel, and Yvonne Craig (the only actor to appear on all of the aforementioned series). When Bewitched star Agnes Moorehead guest starred on the series she won an Emmy Award for her performance as Emma Valentine in the 1967 episode “The Night of the Vicious Valentine.”
Production
For the pilot episode “The Night of the Inferno” Garrison turned to television writer Gilbert Ralston. He was asked to put a Western and James Bond into the same script. Ralston stated he then created the characters, the format, and the story outline. The script for the pilot went through nine drafts. The pilot was shot in December 1964 with a cost of $650,000 ($6.3 million adjusted for inflation).
Since Garrison had no television experience and had made a very expensive pilot for The Wild Wild West a series of producers were used that CBS trusted instead. This caused problems behind the scenes during the first season.
The first producer CBS brought on was Ben Brady who lasted about five minutes because the network moved him to Rawhide to get that show on track after series star Eric Fleming quit. They then turned to Collier Young who had bragged often onset about being the person to come up with the idea to add the second “Wild” to the show’s title. He essentially abandoned the spy aspect of the series opting more for a traditional Western show. Yound only lasted three episodes.
Fred Freiberger was brought in. He returned the show back to Garrision’s original concept. However, after ten episodes he and Garrison were both essentially fired from the show. This left the cast and crew completely stunned.
“I was fired for accomplishing what I had been hired to do. I was hired to pull the show together when it was in chaos.”
– Fred Freiberger
Next, John Mantley took over for seven episodes. Gene L. Coon came in for six episodes. Finally, Garrison returned near the end of the season much to the relief of the cast and crew, especially Martin.
“(Garrison) saw the show as a Bond spoof laid in 1870, and we all knew where we stood. Each new producer tried to put his stamp on the show and I had a terrible struggle. I fought them line by line in every script. They knew they couldn’t change the James West role very much, but it was open season on Artemus Gordon because they had never seen anything like him before.”
– Ross Martin
More changes occurred in the second season. First and foremost the series went to color. On August 17, 1966, however, during the production of the second season’s ninth episode, “The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse”, Garrison tumbled down a flight of stairs in his home, fractured his skull, and died. CBS brought in Bruce Lansbury, brother of actress Angela Lansbury, to produce the show for the remainder of the series.
Injuries and Health Issues
Conrad, along with White Hughes, choreographed all of his fight scenes in the series. He also performed his own stunts for the majority of the series. However, during the fourth season episode “The Night of the Fugitives” Conrad fell from a chandelier, sustaining several injuries, including a concussion. Because of this CBS insisted that he use a stunt double going forward. The crew gifted him an on-set chair inscribed “Robert Conrad, ex-stuntman, retired by CBS, Jan. 24, 1968.”
“When I came back for the fourth season, I was limited to what I could do for insurance reasons. So I agreed and gradually I did all the fights but couldn’t do anything five feet off the ground…”
– Robert Conrad
Conrad’s stunt man from that point on was Jimmy George with Bob Herron doing the stunt work for Martin. When using stuntmen, they would often employ “the Texas Switch.” This was where a stuntman would do the difficult stunt work and then would switch with the actor behind objects such as a large box.
Martin suffered a heart attack during the fourth season. This led him to miss the filming of nine episodes. A series of guest stars (Charles Aidman, Alan Hale Jr. John Williams, and William Schallert) were used to fill in for the recovering actor.
Music
The original choice to write the title theme for The Wild Wild West was film composer Dimitri Tiomkin. After his first two attempts were rejected, series brass hired veteran Hollywood composer Richard Markowitz.
“By combining jazz with Americana, I think that’s what nailed it. That took it away from the serious kind of thing that Tiomkin was trying to do…What I did essentially was write two themes: the rhythmic, contemporary theme, Fender bass, and brushes, that vamp, for the cartoon effects and for West’s getting himself out of trouble, and the heraldic western outdoor theme over that so that the two worked together.”
– Richard Markowitz
Cancellation
After the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy President Lyndon Johnson created the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. One of the things that this organization monitored was violence on television.
CBS then mandated that The Wild Wild West tone down the violence of the show. The shooting script for the episode “The Night of Miguelito’s Revenge”, which aired on December 13, 1968 states:
“Note to Directors: The producer respectfully asks that no violent acts be shot which are not depicted in the script or discussed beforehand. Most particularly stay away from gratuitous ad-libs, such as slaps, pointing of firearms or other weapons at characters (especially in close quarters), kicks and the use of furniture and other objects in fight scenes.”
The same month this episode aired television executives from all three networks appeared before the President’s Commission. During these meetings, Rep. Hale Boggs (D-Louisiana) claimed The Wild Wild West was one of the most violent and sadistic shows on television.
In mid-February when the network learned that they would have to appear before the Senate Communications subcommittee about the same topic of violence in television. The following month the decision was made to cancel The Wild Wild West.
“It was a sacrificial lamb … It went off with a 32 or 33 share which in those days was virtually break-even but it always won its time period.”
– Bruce Lansbury
CBS soon regretted canceling the series. The following summer they decided to rebroadcast old episodes during the Summer.
“The return of Wild Wild West even for a summer re-run isn’t surprising. CBS-TV was never really very eager to cancel this series, since over a four-year run that began in 1965 the Wild Wild West had been a solid winner in the ratings. Cancellation came mainly because CBS officials were concerned about the criticism over televised violence and to a lesser degree because Robert Conrad had grown slightly weary of the role of James West. Ever since last fall’s ratings started rolling in, CBS has wished that it had kept Wild Wild West. None of the replacements have done nearly as well and, as a result, all of the Friday programs suffered.”
– Lawrence Laurent
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