The Alaskans

For the 1924 lost film, see The Alaskan.

The Alaskans
Roger Moore on the set of The Alaskans, 1959
Genre	Adventure Western
Directed by	Leslie Goodwins Richard Gordon Charles F. Haas Jesse Hibbs Leslie H. Martinson William A. Seiter Richard Sinclair Robert Sparr Herbert L. Strock Jacques Tourneur George Waggner
Starring	Roger Moore Dorothy Provine Jeff York Ray Danton
Theme music composer	"Gold Fever" by Mack David and Jerry Livingston
Composer	Max Steiner
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	37
Production
Executive producer	William T. Orr
Producers	Barry Ingster Harry Tatelman Charles Trapnell Oren W. Haglund (Production manager) Gordon Bau (make-up)
Production location	California
Editors	David Wages Robert B. Warwick
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	Warner Bros. Television
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	October 4, 1959 (1959-10-04) – June 19, 1960 (1960-06-19)
Related
Maverick Bronco Cheyenne Sugarfoot

The Alaskans is a 1959–1960 ABC/Warner Bros. Western television series set during the late 1890s in the port of Skagway, Alaska. The show features Roger Moore as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee", a pair of adventurers intent on swindling travelers bound for the Yukon Territories during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Their plans are inevitably complicated by the presence of singer "Rocky Shaw" (Dorothy Provine), "an entertainer with a taste for the finer things in life".

The show was the first regular work on American television for the British actor Roger Moore.

Background and production

The Alaskans is closely related to the ABC/WB series Maverick through broadcast and production. Maverick was the most prominent of ABC's Sunday night of Western dramas. For the 1959–60 season, Sundays began with Colt .45 and Maverick, then John Russell's Lawman and Nick Adams' The Rebel, and concluded with The Alaskans.

For Roger Moore, the series was memorable for being his "most appalling television series ever". In particular, he found that attempting to recreate Alaskan exteriors on a studio backlot in California made for disagreeably hot work days. The show also caused some marital strife for the actor when he had to admit to wife Dorothy Squires that he had fallen in love with co-star Dorothy Provine.

Writing

Because of the 1960 Writers Guild of America strike as well as an ongoing Warner Bros. policy to save money on writers, The Alaskans inherited a certain amount of scripted material from Maverick. Moore bristled at the lack of originality in scripts: "An old Bronco script would interchange with an Alaskans or Maverick. In some cases, even the dialogue stayed unchanged." In 2007, Moore noted, "Quite often I realized that we were filming Maverick scripts, with the names changed." This made it simple for Jack L. Warner to envision Moore as Maverick, since Moore had literally delivered Garner's dialogue while reshooting the same scripts with different names and locales.

Cancellation

The same year that The Alaskans was canceled, James Garner left Maverick. Moore became, under protest, Garner's replacement, playing Bret Maverick's cousin Beau Maverick in the fourth season of Maverick.

Cast

• Roger Moore as Silky Harris
• Dorothy Provine as Rocky Shaw
• Jeff York as Reno McKee
• Ray Danton as Nifty Cronin
• John Dehner in two episodes each as Cornish and Soapy Smith

Guest stars

• Julie Adams
• Claude Akins
• Don Beddoe
• Jacqueline Beer
• Steve Brodie
• Walter Burke
• Frank Cady
• Robert Colbert
• Tris Coffin
• Jerome Cowan
• John Dehner
• Frank DeKova
• Troy Donahue
• Don Dubbins
• Frank Ferguson
• Arthur Franz
• Leo Gordon
• Alan Hale, Jr.
• Myron Healey
• John Hoyt
• I. Stanford Jolley
• Allyn Joslyn
• Andrea King
• Werner Klemperer
• Ruta Lee
• Andra Martin
• Diane McBain
• Robert McQueeney
• Mort Mills

• Gerald Mohr
• Simon Oakland
• Joan O'Brien
• Jerry Paris
• Emory Parnell
• Lee Patterson
• Larry Pennell
• Louis Quinn
• Gilman Rankin
• Rex Reason
• Mike Road
• Madlyn Rhue
• Bing Russell
• Walter Sande
• Dick Sargent
• Pippa Scott
• Fay Spain
• Karen Steele
• Warren Stevens
• Harold J. Stone
• Ray Teal
• Lee Van Cleef
• Gary Vinson
• Richard Webb
• James Westerfield
• Peter Whitney
• Marie Windsor
• Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	"Gold Sled"	Unknown	Unknown	October 4, 1959 (1959-10-04)
2	"Cheating Cheaters"	Unknown	Unknown	October 11, 1959 (1959-10-11)
3	"The Devil Made Five"	Unknown	Unknown	October 18, 1959 (1959-10-18)
4	"The Petticoat Crew"	Unknown	Unknown	October 25, 1959 (1959-10-25)
5	"Starvation Stampede"	Unknown	Unknown	November 1, 1959 (1959-11-01)
6	"Big Deal"	Unknown	Unknown	November 8, 1959 (1959-11-08)
7	"Contest at Gold Bottom"	Unknown	Unknown	November 15, 1959 (1959-11-15)
8	"Winter Song"	Unknown	Unknown	November 22, 1959 (1959-11-22)
9	"The Golden Fleece"	Unknown	Unknown	November 29, 1959 (1959-11-29)
10	"Doc Booker"	Unknown	Unknown	December 6, 1959 (1959-12-06)
11	"The Abominable Snowman"	Unknown	Unknown	December 13, 1959 (1959-12-13)
12	"Remember the Maine"	Unknown	Unknown	December 20, 1959 (1959-12-20)
13	"Million Dollar Kid"	Unknown	Unknown	January 3, 1960 (1960-01-03)
14	"The Trial of Reno McKee"	Unknown	Unknown	January 10, 1960 (1960-01-10)
15	"Gold Fever"	Unknown	Unknown	January 17, 1960 (1960-01-17)
16	"The Challenge"	Unknown	Unknown	January 24, 1960 (1960-01-24)
17	"The Long Pursuit"	Unknown	Unknown	January 31, 1960 (1960-01-31)
18	"Spring Fever"	Unknown	Unknown	February 7, 1960 (1960-02-07)
19	"Black Sand"	Unknown	Unknown	February 14, 1960 (1960-02-14)
20	"The Seal Skin-Game"	Unknown	Unknown	February 21, 1960 (1960-02-21)
21	"Peril at Caribou Crossing"	Unknown	Unknown	February 28, 1960 (1960-02-28)
22	"Behind the Moon"	Unknown	Unknown	March 6, 1960 (1960-03-06)
23	"Partners"	Unknown	Unknown	March 13, 1960 (1960-03-13)
24	"Disaster at Gold Hill"	Unknown	Unknown	March 20, 1960 (1960-03-20)
25	"The Last Bullet"	Unknown	Unknown	March 27, 1960 (1960-03-27)
26	"A Barrel of Gold"	Unknown	Unknown	April 3, 1960 (1960-04-03)
27	"The Bride Wore Black"	Unknown	Unknown	April 10, 1960 (1960-04-10)
28	"Odd Man Hangs"	Unknown	Unknown	April 17, 1960 (1960-04-17)
29	"Counterblow"	Unknown	Unknown	April 24, 1960 (1960-04-24)
30	"Heart of Gold"	Unknown	Unknown	May 1, 1960 (1960-05-01)
31	"Kangaroo Court"	Unknown	Unknown	May 8, 1960 (1960-05-08)
32	"The Silent Land"	Unknown	Unknown	May 15, 1960 (1960-05-15)
33	"Calico"	Unknown	Unknown	May 22, 1960 (1960-05-22)
34	"Sign of the Kodiak"	Unknown	Unknown	May 29, 1960 (1960-05-29)
35	"White Vengeance"	Unknown	Unknown	June 5, 1960 (1960-06-05)
36	"The Ballad of Whitehorse"	Unknown	Unknown	June 12, 1960 (1960-06-12)

Home media

The Alaskans is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection on August 27, 2024.

External links

• The Alaskans at IMDb