Doug McClure

McClure had a minor part in 1957 as an Army officer in “California Gold Rush in Reverse” on the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days. The episode is a dramatization of the race in 1848 between the Army and the Navy to be the first to deliver gold nuggets from California to Washington, D.C.

In 1958 and 1959 McClure appeared in three episodes of the syndicated western series 26 Men, stories of the Arizona Rangers.

He appeared as Adam Davis in 1959 in the episode “The Court Martial of Trooper Davis” of another syndicated western series, Mackenzie’s Raiders, starring Richard Carlson and set in southwest Texas.

McClure was in the third episode “Mr. Denton on Doomsday“, of CBS’s The Twilight Zone.

Then in 1962, he was cast as Trampas in NBC’s The Virginian. His co-stars throughout the series were James Drury, Roberta Shore, Lee J. Cobb, Randy Boone, Gary Clarke, Clu Gulager, Diane Roter, Charles Bickford, Sara Lane, Tim Matheson, Jeanette Nolan, and John McIntire.

After the show ended in 1971, McClure was slated to co-star with Bette Davis in a series about a parolee assisting a judge, played by Davis, by doing detective work. The pilot, produced and written by the prolific team of Richard Levinson and William Link, failed to generate interest in the series and was released as a telemovie under the title “The Judge and Jake Wyler“.^[3] McClure starred in science fiction films such as At the Earth’s Core, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, all three based on the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1967, he played the Errol Flynn role in a re-make of Against All Flags titled The King’s Pirate. He was cast in the lead in three World War II adventures, The Longest Hundred Miles,The Birdmen and “State Of Division” Aka “Death Race”. In the 1970s and 1980s, McClure appeared in commercials for Hamms Beer.

In 1994, McClure was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7065 Hollywood Blvd. It was unveiled in what was his final public appearance.

On February 5, 1995, McClure died from lung cancer in Sherman Oaks, California. Only fifty-nine, McClure had been a heavy drinker and a lifelong smoker. He is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery, in Santa Monica, California. McClure was married to his fifth wife at the time of his death, and was also survived by daughter Tané from his first marriage, and daughter Valerie from his fourth marriage. McClure was divorced four times, including twice while he was performing on The Virginian.