Not the kind of Maverick we once knew
Let's clear up any confusion about McCain's early life
With Illinois voters being taken for granted again this year in the presidential race, it was only recently that I got to see one of Republican John McCain's campaign commercials with the tag line about him being "The Original Maverick."
I don't know about you, but my first reaction was: That's so cool. I never realized McCain was the original Maverick. That was one of the best television shows ever.
(AP)
Actually, my very first reaction was that I always thought James Garner was the original Maverick, Bret.
But then I remembered there was that other Maverick brother, Bart, the shorter one, and then it all made sense. Bret and Bart were always joking that the other one was older, and so arguably, Bart as the oldest would have been the original Maverick, even though he came on the show months after it started.
I had often wondered what happened to the guy who played Bart. He wasn't quite the star as Garner, but he had a nice screen presence. I would have guessed he was dead by now. Then I realized McCain would be about the right age.
Boy, did that bring back the memories. Saturday nights at 6:30 p.m. The Brown family gathered around the black-and-white TV set, eating the traditional Saturday night special dinner of baloney, cheese and crackers. (Hey, don't knock it. Sometimes we had Ritz to go with the saltines, and it sure beat the heck out of frozen fish sticks.)
Everybody sing along with me:
"Riverboat ring your bell,
Fare thee well Annabelle,
Luck is the lady that he loved the best.
Natchez to New Orleans,
Livin' on jacks and queens,
Maverick is a legend of the West."
Louder now:
"Maverick is a legend of the West."
As much as it warmed my heart to think of Bret and Bart gambling and romancing their way through the old West again, it struck me as kind of sad that I could remember that opening theme song off the top of my head after all these years, but that I had no idea that McCain was on the show, which aired from 1957 to 1962. I never had been entirely clear about what he'd done before Vietnam. I supposed it was one of those things they were waiting to play up in his biographical video at the Republican convention.
Eager to learn more about this phase of McCain's life, I tracked down Burl Barer, author of Maverick: The Making of the Movie/ The Official Guide to the Television Series.
I mentioned to Barer how McCain was using "The Original Maverick" as a campaign slogan, causing my initial confusion with Garner having played, Bret, the first Maverick, which I cleared up when I remembered his brother Bart, the other Maverick.
"Yes, you mean Jack Kelly," Barer said.
Jack Kelly?
"Jack Kelly played Bart Maverick," Barer said.
It wasn't John McCain?
"No."
Then which of the Maverick brothers did McCain play?
"Ha-ha," Barer responded, apparently doubting my sincerity as he patiently explained that at various times Maverick starred Garner as Bret, Kelly as Bart, Roger Moore as Beau and Robert Colbert as Brent -- the poker-playing Maverick brothers. But never McCain.
"It wasn't, 'Who was the short bald stranger there?' " Barer said, playing off the opening stanza from the theme song about a tall, dark stranger.
But I told him I remembered Bart as being shorter. Was Kelly close to McCain's height?
"Maybe Billy Barty, the little person's actor," said Barer, who despite such wisecracks swears he isn't one of those Hollywood liberals.
Although embarrassed by my mistake, I chatted further with Barer about Kelly, who it turns out died in 1992.
Surprisingly enough, Barer said Kelly's episodes drew slightly higher ratings than Garner's, and Kelly was the higher-paid star, earning $650 a week to Garner's $500. No, I'm not leaving off any zeroes.
Kelly even went into politics, becoming the mayor of Huntington Beach, Calif. But he was no John McCain, which didn't reduce the sting of learning that McCain was no original Maverick either.
One of the distinguishing traits of the Maverick brothers -- and a key to the show's success -- was that they were all reluctant heroes, Barer noted.
"An eager hero is not a maverick," he said.
Hmmm.
I think I've figured out where I went wrong. I was using the wrong cultural touchstone. The Ori ginal Maverick must be a reference to the Tom Cruise character in Top Gun.