The Gambler is a series of five American Western television films starring Kenny Rogers as Brady Hawkes, a fictional old-west gambler. The character was inspired by Rogers' hit single "The Gambler". [1]
There are five movies in the series. The first four were directed by Dick Lowry while the last was directed by Jack Bender. The movies are:
Films | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Character | Kenny Rogers as The Gambler | Kenny Rogers as The Gambler: The Adventure Continues | Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, Part III: The Legend Continues | The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw | Gambler V: Playing for Keeps |
1980 | 1983 | 1987 | 1991 | 1994 | |
Brady Hawkes | Kenny Rogers | ||||
Billy Montana | Bruce Boxleitner | Bruce Boxleitner | |||
Jeremiah Hawkes | Ronnie Scribner | Charles Fields | Kris Kamm | ||
Arthur Stobridge | Harold Gould | ||||
Jennie Reed | Lee Purcell | ||||
Eliza | Christine Belford | ||||
Rufe Bennett | Clu Gulager | ||||
Doc Palmer | Lance LeGault | ||||
Kate Muldoon | Linda Evans | Linda Evans | |||
Masket | Johnny Crawford | ||||
Carson | David Hedison | ||||
Pvt. Bob Butler | Marc Alaimo | ||||
Sen. Henry Colton | Charles Durning | ||||
Chief Sitting Bull | George American Horse | ||||
Bat Masterson | Gene Barry | ||||
Kwai Chang Caine | David Carradine | ||||
Lucas McCain | Chuck Connors | ||||
Mark McCain | Johnny Crawford | ||||
The Westerner | Brian Keith | ||||
Bart Maverick | Jack Kelly | ||||
Marshal Wyatt Earp | Hugh O'Brian | ||||
Cheyenne | Clint Walker | ||||
Butch Cassidy | Scott Paulin | ||||
Sundance Kid | Brett Cullen | ||||
Etta Place | Mariska Hargitay |
Kenny Rogers as The Gambler debuted on CBS on April 8, 1980. [2] [3] It was a ratings and critical success that has spawned four sequels. [3] The show won a Best Edited Television Special Eddie Award and garnered two Emmy Award nominations (for cinematography and editing of a limited series). [4]
Kenny Rogers stars as Brady Hawkes, the titular gambler, who embarks on a journey to meet Jeremiah (Ronnie Scribner), the young son he never knew after Jeremiah sends him a letter. Along the way, Brady meets Billy Montana (Bruce Boxleitner) and the two become friends. Billy (while trying to help Brady in his quest) fancies himself as a professional poker player on his own. Although Billy makes mistakes along the way (some of these include trying to find a way to cheat or do some smooth talking), Brady makes sure that he stays on good behavior during a train ride to Yuma. The duo help Jennie Reed (Lee Purcell), a prostitute who has trouble with a train baron. At the end, Brady's son's stepfather (Clu Gulager) is confronted.
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Kenny Rogers again stars as Brady Hawkes in the miniseries Kenny Rogers as The Gambler: The Adventure Continues which premiered November 28 and 29, 1983 on CBS. [2] The show was an even bigger ratings success than the first and was nominated for two Emmy Awards (sound editing and sound mixing of a limited series). [5]
Billy Montana, Brady, and his son Jeremiah (now played by Charles Fields) are traveling to a gambling event in San Francisco when they encounter the vicious McCourt gang. The McCourt gang force the train to stop and they take Jeremiah hostage and demand a $1 million ransom. Brady and Billy are determined to get Jeremiah back as well as the $1 million ransom which belonged to the train boss. Brady and Billy find help in their mission and meet a female bounty hunter Kate Muldoon played by Linda Evans. Kate is the fastest female gun in the west. They form a posse together in a race to save Jeremiah.
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Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, Part III: The Legend Continues was broadcast November 22, 1987 on CBS. [6]
In this installment, Brady Hawkes and Billy Montana help protect some Sioux Indians from the government and some cattle thieves. [7]
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw is a 1991 television film starring Kenny Rogers as Brady Hawkes and Reba McEntire as Burgundy Jones. [8] Rogers reprises Hawkes in the fourth installment of the series. The two-part film originally aired November 3 and 4, 1991 on NBC, making it the only one of the five "Gambler" TV movies which did not air on CBS. It was nominated for a Costume Design Emmy. [9]
It's 1906 and professional gambling will be outlawed in just three weeks. Therefore, Burgundy Jones (McEntire) has just that long to get Brady Hawkes safely to San Francisco for the last poker tournament, with a very special mystery player. This is made more difficult, as Hawkes is still smarting after a hard-fought loss to another professional poker player in England, who will also be at the tournament.
The film features Rogers' character running across a galaxy of old TV western stars played by the original actors, including Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp, Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie, David Carradine as Kung Fu 's Caine, Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman , Brian Keith as The Westerner, James Drury and Doug McClure from The Virginian (Drury and McClure play thinly disguised different characters, Jim and Doug, due to rights issues for Owen Wister's character), and Paul Brinegar from Rawhide .
The characters are attending a poker game said to be in honor of "the late Mr. Paladin" from Have Gun — Will Travel . (The actor who played him, Richard Boone, had died in 1981.) The game was played at the hotel at which Paladin lived. The game's dealer is "Hey Girl", Paladin's friend (Lisa Lu). As each veteran character appears, a few bars from his original series' theme momentarily plays in the background.
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw was directed by Dick Lowry.
In alphabetical order:
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Gambler V: Playing for Keeps is the fifth installment of The Gambler series and the first not directed by Dick Lowry, with Jack Bender taking the helm. The two-part movie premiered on October 2 and October 4, 1994 on CBS.
Brady Hawkes' son, Jeremiah (with Kris Kamm as the third actor in the role) gets involved with outlaws Butch Cassidy (Scott Paulin) and the Sundance Kid (Brett Cullen). [10] Brady tries to save him before he winds up in jail or dead.
On March 15, 2011, Kenny Rogers told Jimmy Fallon on his television show, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon , that he was asked if he would want to be in another Gambler movie. He began by saying that he had a bad knee and thought it would be hard for him, but continued and said that the first scene in the movie would be a shootout. Supposedly, he would get shot in the shoulder and knee to cover his physical disabilities. [11] However, in the years that followed Rogers announced his retirement from show business and stated that his 2016 tour would be his last and after this he would be spending his time with family. Rogers later died on March 20, 2020. [12]
A video slot machine based on The Gambler can be found in most Las Vegas casinos. It was manufactured by now-defunct International Game Technology. [13]
Kenny Rogers was an American singer and songwriter. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences but also charted more than 120 hit singles across various genres, topping the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide during his lifetime, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His fame and career spanned multiple genres: jazz, folk, pop, rock, and country. He remade his career and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.
Bruce William Boxleitner is an American actor and science fiction and suspense writer. He is known for his leading roles in the television series How the West Was Won, Bring 'Em Back Alive, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Babylon 5 . He is also known for his dual role as the characters Alan Bradley and Tron in the 1982 Walt Disney Pictures film Tron, a role which he reprised in the 2003 video game Tron 2.0, the 2006 Square-Enix/Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II, the 2010 film sequel, Tron: Legacy and the animated series Tron: Uprising. He co-starred in most of the Gambler films with Kenny Rogers, where his character provided comic relief. He also voiced General Moss in the films AniMen: Triton Force and AniMen: The Galactic Battle.
Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor and singer. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City (1952) and The War of The Worlds (1953) and for his portrayal of the title characters in the TV series Bat Masterson and Burke's Law, among many roles.
Douglas Osborne McClure was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. He is best known for his role as the cowboy Trampas during the entire run from 1962 to 1971 of the series The Virginian and mayor turned police chief Kyle Applegate on Out of This World. From 1961-1963, he was married to actress BarBara Luna.
Larry Butler was a country music producer/songwriter. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, he worked with Kenny Rogers. Many of his albums with Rogers went either gold or platinum and accumulated many millions of sales around the world. These albums include Kenny Rogers (1976), The Gambler (1978), Gideon (1980) and I Prefer The Moonlight (1987). Rogers and Butler maintained a friendship outside of show business. Butler also produced Rogers' 1993 album If Only My Heart Had A Voice. He also participated in Rogers 2006 retrospective DVD The Journey.
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is the first Western television series written for adults. It premiered four days before Gunsmoke on September 6, 1955. Two weeks later came the Clint Walker western Cheyenne. The series is loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour, black-and-white program aired for six seasons on ABC from 1955 to 1961, with Hugh O'Brian in the title role.
From 1935 to 1948, 66 American Western films were produced featuring the character Hopalong Cassidy, played in all the films by actor William Boyd. The films were at the time collectively known as "Hoppies". In the films, Hopalong, or "Hoppy", and his white horse, Topper, travel through the Old West while dispensing justice, usually with two companions: one young and trouble-prone with a weakness for damsels in distress, the other older, comically awkward and outspoken.
"Coward of the County" is a song written by Roger Bowling and Billy Edd Wheeler and recorded by American country music singer Kenny Rogers. The song was released in November 1979 as the second single from Rogers' multi-platinum album Kenny. It became a major crossover hit, topping the Billboard Country chart and reaching number three on the Hot 100 chart; it also topped the Cash Box singles chart and was a Top 10 hit in numerous other countries worldwide, topping the chart in Canada, the UK and Ireland, where it remained at number one for six consecutive weeks.
Rex Maynard Linn is an American film and television actor. He is best known domestically for playing the role of Sgt. Frank Tripp in the CBS drama CSI: Miami and more recently for playing Kevin Wachtell in the television series Better Call Saul. Internationally he is best known for playing Richard Travers in the 1993 action thriller film Cliffhanger.
"The Gambler" is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country singer Kenny Rogers.
God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai is a 1991 Hong Kong comedy film, a sequel to God of Gamblers II (1990). The film is directed by Wong Jing, and stars Stephen Chow and Ng Man-tat. God of Gamblers III continues the story of the Saint of Gamblers (Chow), and does not feature the Knight of Gamblers or the God of Gamblers. The story is about Chow accidentally going back in time to Shanghai in 1937, as he tries to figure out how to return to Hong Kong in 1991.
Hawkes is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Patrick William Cassidy is an American actor and singer best known for his roles in musical theatre and television.
Dick Lowry is an American director and film producer.
Kenny Rogers as The Gambler is a 1980 American Western television film directed by Dick Lowry. The film premiered on CBS on April 8, 1980. It was loosely based on the Grammy-winning Kenny Rogers song of the same name, and stars the singer as Brady Hawkes, a gambler trying to reunite with a son he never knew, played by Ronnie Scribner. It was a critical and commercial success, receiving an Eddie Award and two Emmy nominations, and resulting in four sequels.
William Janney was an American actor who appeared in 39 films between 1929 and 1937.
The Maverick Queen is a 1956 American Western film in Trucolor starring Barbara Stanwyck as the title character and Barry Sullivan as an undercover Pinkerton detective out to stop outlaws Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and the Wild Bunch. It was the first film made in Republic's widescreen process Naturama. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Zane Grey.
The Outcasts of Poker Flat is a 1937 American Western film directed by Christy Cabanne and written by John Twist and Harry Segall. The film stars Preston Foster, Jean Muir, Van Heflin, Virginia Weidler and Margaret Irving. The film was released on April 16, 1937, by RKO Pictures.
Larry Brown is an American musician, composer and recording engineer.
Poker Face is a 2022 Australian-American thriller film written by, directed by and starring Russell Crowe. It co-stars Liam Hemsworth and RZA. The film had a limited theatrical release on November 16, 2022 and was released on demand on November 22, 2022.
These Western adventures, based on the leading actor's best-selling song, are about gambler Brady Hawkes.
Telecast on the CBS network, it achieved the highest rating of any TV movie shown over the previous two years.
The Gambler V: Playing for Keeps (10/2/94) featured Brady and Billy again rescuing Jeremiah (now Kris Kamm) from outlaws Butch Cassidy (Scott Paulin) and the Sundance Kid (Brett Cullen).