This document summarizes several classic TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s that featured gamblers and card players, including Mr. Lucky, Maverick, and unnamed westerns. Mr. Lucky was a 1959 CBS TV series and 1943 movie about a gambler running a floating casino. Maverick starred James Garner and Jack Kelly as traveling card players and brothers getting into adventures. Many westerns of the era depicted saloons as centers of card games and drinking, and were sponsored by tobacco companies who used the shows to promote their products.

1. Poker: Gamblers of Classic TV
By Randy LaCroix

2. 1950s & 1960s Present
• A variety of television entertainment kept families across
America fascinated with the magic of television.
• Besides the half hour comedy shows television began to
evolve in episode TV series that people would follow.
• Some of the more popular series were created by talent
that went on to do writing, directing, producing, and
musical scores for major motion pictures.
• An easy storyline to follow was one about card playing
gamblers, their women, or both.

3. Mr. Lucky
• In 1943 Hollywood came out with Mr. Lucky, a movie
starring Cary Grant about a gambler and his girlfriend.
• CBS aired a TV series in 1959 called Mr. Lucky about a
gambler who ran a floating casino off the three-mile limit.
• It was developed by Blake Edwards with the musical
score provided by Henry Mancini.
• It was one of the highest rated shows of the 1959-1960
season but was canceled when Lever Brothers and
Brown & Williamson dropped the show’s sponsorship.
• It seems that Lever Brothers was just coming off the quiz
show scandals of the 1950s.

4. Maverick
• In September of 1957 ABD debuted a western series called
Maverick.
• James Garner starred as Bret Maverick, a slick traveling card player
who was joined later by his card playing brother, Bart Maverick
played by Jack Kelly.
• The brother rotated each week traveling on riverboats and through
the West getting in and out of trouble with money, women, or both.
• Garner left the series in the 3rd season and was replaced by Roger
Moore as cousin Beau.
• Beau Maverick was supposed to be played by Sean Connery who
turned down the role.
• Interestingly, Sean Connery went on to play James Bond and was
replaced in that role by Roger Moore.
• In 2006 James Garner’s hometown of Norman, Oklahoma erected a
10 foot bronze statue of Garner’s Bret Maverick.

5. Sponsorship
• Many a TV western depicts a town’s saloon which seems
to be the focal point of men drinking and playing cards.
• The saloons and smoke filled, and the first place the US
Marshal or Sheriff goes to get his man.
• The many western television series of the 1960s were
sponsored by tobacco companies like: Winston Salem,
Lorillard, Liggett & Meyers, the American Tobacco
Company, and Brown & Williamson. And many of the
smoking stars of these programs would endorse the
respective products.