Death Valley Days

Stanley Andrews as "The Old Ranger", first host of Death Valley Days

Each of the 452 television episodes was introduced by a host. The longest-running was "The Old Ranger," a character played by veteran actor Stanley Andrews.

Following the departure of Andrews, all subsequent hosts appeared under their own names. The first was Ronald Reagan, the former host of CBS's General Electric Theater and future governor and U.S. President from 1981 to 1989. Reagan acted in twenty-one episodes of Death Valley Days, including the 1965 segment "A City Is Born." In that one, he played mining developer Charles Poston, the founder of Arizona. When Reagan entered the race for governor, actress Rosemary DeCamp filled in as the host for a short time. Then the Death Valley Days hosting position went to Reagan's friend and fellow Hollywood actor, Robert Taylor. Like Reagan, Taylor appeared as a character in some of the shows, including "The Day All Marriages Were Cancelled" (1966), also based on the career of Charles Poston.

Taylor portrayed Horace Bell in another 1967 episode, "Major Horace Bell." In the story line, Major Bell, an early settler of Los Angeles, rescues from lynching and defends a man who has been accused of murder.[3] That same year in the episode "Shanghai Kelly's Birthday Party," Taylor played James Kelly of San Francisco, who shanghaied sailors onto ships bound for the Far East with the expectation that none would return to accuse Kelly of a crime.[4]

Taylor played Texas John Slaughter, a role most associated with Tom Tryon, in the 1968 Death Valley Days episode "A Short Cut through Tombstone." Buck Taylor (no relation) played his deputy, Billy Stiles. Ned Romero was cast as the Geronimo Kid.[5] He played Porter Stockton in the 1967 episode "Halo for a Badman" with Marion Ross as his wife. In the story line, Stockton, an ex-convict, is hired by Mayor Engley (Roy Barcroft) as the marshal of the former Animas City, near Durango in southwestern Colorado, because local officials believe that Stockton can withstand outlaws who have robbed every gold shipment sent out of town. One of the towspeople George Neise, however, tragically thinks Stockton has not reformed but is still involved with the gangs.[6] As Charles Marion Russell he must decide if the Old West he loves should be protected by those outside the law like Buck Don Megowan; his future wife Nancy Susan Brown gives him some inspirational insight.

When Taylor became gravely ill in 1969, he was succeeded by Dale Robertson, former star of two other western series, Tales of Wells Fargo and Iron Horse. Production of new episodes ceased in 1970, but singer Merle Haggard provided narration in 1975 for some previously made episodes.

Parts of the series were filmed in Kanab, Utah.[7] Most episodes, though, were filmed in Los Angeles, California.

As the series continued on the air, episodes began to focus on nearly any portion of the American West, not just the Death Valley country. Most episodes portrayed events in the late 19th century, the heyday of the "Old West". Some, however, were set in much earlier times, especially the Spanish colonial era, and a few recounted stories from the early 20th century.

For its first two years, the series was produced by Autry's Flying A Productions; then from 1954 to 1959, it was handled by McGowan Productions, also known for the Sky King series.[8] Filmaster Productions Inc., which produced the first several seasons of Gunsmoke for CBS Television, took over production of the series after 1959. Madison Productions began to produce the series in 1965.[9]

Although Rio Tinto, successor-in-interest to the series' original sponsor, U.S. Borax, still has a financial stake in this show because copyrights are still held by the United States Borax and Chemical Corporation, the major rights are now held by Element 5 Media, LLC for the broadcast rights and home video rights.

Death Valley Days is by far the most successful syndicated television western series, the most successful television western ever in the half-hour format, and one of the longest-running and most successful of all scripted syndicated series. The end of the series, coupled with the end of Bonanza in 1973 and Gunsmoke in 1975, marked the demise of the traditional Western era in American television; by the middle 1970s, although western elements were still fairly common in modern series, such as Little House on the Prairie, pure western series were a thing of the past.

The stories used in the series were based on actual events. The episode titled "Death Valley Scotty" was based on the record-breaking run of the 1905 Scott Special chartered by Walter E. Scott, a.k.a. "Death Valley Scotty."

During the latter years of the series, some new episodes were still being made while older episodes were already in syndication. In some markets, new episodes could even be running in competition with older ones. To make it easier for viewers to distinguish between old and new, some blocks of syndicated "Death Valley Days" episodes were shown under other series names and with different hosts. This was common practice at the time among syndicated series because it was easy to reshoot the hosting portions of an episode without affecting the main content. Alternate series titles and their respective hosts included Frontier Adventure (Dale Robertson), The Pioneers (Will Rogers, Jr.), Trails West (Ray Milland), Western Star Theater (Rory Calhoun), and Call of the West (John Payne). The last title was also often applied to the series' memorable, haunting theme music.

Shout! Factory (on behalf of Element 5 Media LLC and Rio Tinto), has released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1.[16][17] Both seasons were released as Walmart exclusives. The third season was released on March 21, 2017[18] The thirteenth season was released on July 31, 2017 as a Walmart exclusive. Then, on Tuesday, October 3, 2017 the title "went wide" with a general retail release.[19] The fourteenth season was released on January 2, 2018.[20]

• Born in East L.A. (song), for which the show is a plot point.

• Tim Brooks & Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

• Death Valley Days Official Website
• Death Valley Days at IMDb
• Death Valley Days at TV.com
• Death Valley Days, free downloads at the Internet Archive
• Death Valley Days at CVTA