TV Legend Lee Majors Joined This Iconic Western Series In Its Final Season

ABC

Lee Majors will forever be linked to small screen Westerns thanks to the fact he began his career playing multiple cowboy character. Majors made his TV debut in the genre-defining Western "Gunsmoke" before landing his breakthrough role playing Heath Barkley on the classic Western TV series "The Big Valley." That show came to an end in 1969, and Majors was still four years away from playing his best known character, Colonel Steve Austin, on "The Six Million Dollar Man." Between the end of "The Big Valley" and his now legendary ABC action series, then, Majors kept himself busy with a main role on legal drama "Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law." But he also returned to the Old West when he joined the final season of "The Virginian" as new ranch hand Roy Tate.

Another classic Western show, "The Virginian" aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 and starred James Drury as the eponymous foreman of the Shiloh Ranch in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Throughout the series' run, this man of mystery, whose real name was never revealed, fought outlaws, led cattle drives, and kept his ranch hands in line as the Shiloh ranch underwent various changes of ownership. The show was loosely based on Owen Wister's 1902 novel "The Virginian, A Horseman of the Plains," but was very much its own thing — as evidenced by the overhaul that came in its final season and saw Majors join the Shiloh crew.

NBC

By 1970, "The Virginian" had been running for eight seasons and had long since established itself as one of the great Western series of the era (It was also notable for being the first ever 90-minute Western show). But Season 8 was the first time "The Virginian" dropped out of the top 30 in the ratings.  So, NBC took action, renaming the series to "The Men from Shiloh" and instituting a time jump of 10 years. 

Only James Drury's Virginian and his top hand, Trampas (Doug McClure), remained from the original series, which was also given a new opening sequence and title theme composed by the great Ennio Morricone. The esteemed composer's involvement was one way in which the revamped show tried to emulate the feel of the Spaghetti Westerns that became popular after Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone rewrote filmmaking rules with the "Dollars" trilogy.

The rebrand also came at a time when networks were moving away from the Western genre as part of the so-called "rural purge." TV executives were eager to capture younger demographics and rural-based shows were canceled en masse. "The Virginian" was a casualty, but with its "The Men from Shiloh" rebrand, managed to hang on for an extra season.

Part of the rebrand involved bringing in Lee Majors, who joined Drury, McClure and the other new addition, Stewart Granger, who played the new owner of the Shiloh ranch, an English Colonel named Alan Mackenzie. In the reworked version of the show, the Shiloh ranch was actually much less prominent. Instead, stories focused on one of the four leads who would typically be out on some adventure. Majors joined in the fifth episode of Season 9, entitled "The Mysterious Mr. Tate."

NBC

"The Mysterious Mr. Tate" sees Colonel Alan MacKenzie traveling by train when he witnesses Lee Majors' Roy Tate being lynched for having defended himself in a gunfight. MacKenzie intervenes and brings Tate aboard the train. But this mystery man who clearly has some sort of criminal background attracts the attention of several other men on board, one of whom recognizes him from prison. They try to persuade Tate to join them in their plan to kidnap Lark Walters, the daughter of MacKenzie's wealthy friend. But he refuses and MacKenzie subsequently offers him a job at Shiloh.

Thereafter, Roy Tate became a mainstay at the ranch, with Majors appearing in seven episodes (though he was credited as a lead for all 24 episodes of Season 9). Since "The Men from Shiloh" focused on a different main character with each episode, Majors didn't show up as much as you might expect given he was a co-lead on the show. As such, "The Men from Shiloh" can't really be counted as one of Lee Majors' best TV shows. But not only was he already well known to audiences thanks to his time on "The Big Valley," "The Men from Shiloh" was a fairly high-profile gig and was an important entry in the man's filmography.

Important though it was, the retooling of "The Virginian" was short-lived. In truth, its time jump and new characters meant that "The Men from Shiloh" was more of a sequel series than a continuation of the original. Whether that helped remains unclear but "The Men from Shiloh" did manage to crack the ratings top 30. For whatever reason (the aforementioned "rural purge" probably had something to do with it) NBC decided to cancel the revamped series after 24 episodes.