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James Garner is one of the most iconic Western stars ever to grace the small screen, having played poker player Bret Maverick on the hit '50s series "Maverick." A decade after that show ended, however, Garner put his spurs back on for a new Western, but the one-season '70s show "Nichols" was not nearly as successful.
Garner famously quit "Maverick" after three seasons, and there was bad blood between him and the studio behind the hit Western, Warner Bros. He spent the rest of the decade mostly acting in Western films, with only a handful of TV spots where he largely appeared as himself. By the early '70s, though, Garner and the studio had seemingly made up, and he took the title role in "Nichols."
The show was different from your typical Western; rather than being set in the Wild West of the late 1800s, the NBC series took place in 1914. Characters don't just ride horses, they ride motorcycles. Garner's Nichols returns to his somewhat more modern and industrialized hometown only to find that a rival family has basically taken the place over. Future Lois Lane actress Margot Kidder played his love interest, while the late Stuart Margolin played his sidekick. Margolin and Garner would co-star later in the '70s in "The Rockford Files."
James Garner was so frustrated by Nichols' failure that he killed off the main character in the finale
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"Nichols" faced problems right from the jump despite James Garner's previous success as the lead of a popular TV Western. In fact, as the author explained in his autobiography "The Garner Files: A Memoir," his success in "Maverick" ultimately worked against the new show. Chevrolet was supposed to sponsor the series, but the car company pulled back its support after the wife of one of the executives complained "It's not 'Maverick'" following a screening at Chevy's Detroit headquarters. Chevrolet opted only to sponsor half the series.
The hits kept coming. Coverage of the 1972 presidential election pre-empted a full third of the season's 24 episodes. NBC moved the show to a new night in the middle of the season, but not even changing the name to "James Garner as Nichols" in an explicit attempt to take advantage of his Western celebrity made a difference. Although Garner claims that "Nichols" put up admirable numbers when airing opposite the top-rated show on TV at the time, "Marcus Welby, M.D.," the network gave it the axe.
"I was so angry and disappointed, I decided to kill Nichols off in the last episode," Garner wrote. His character gets shot and killed in the opening sequence, only for Nichols's twin brother, Jim Nichols (also played by Garner), to stroll into town to avenge his sibling. Despite the show's failure and somewhat trolling ending, Garner is very fond of the show. "In my mind, 'Nichols' is right up there with 'Maverick' and 'Rockford,'" he wrote.
