
Will Hutchins
Acting
Biography
Will Hutchins (born Marshall Lowell Hutchason), is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer from the Oklahoma Territory, Tom Brewster, in sixty-nine episodes of the Warner Bros. Western television series Sugarfoot, which aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. Hutchins was discovered by a talent scout for Warner Bros., who changed his name from Marshall Lowell Hutchason to Will Hutchins. The young actor's easygoing manner was compared to Will Rogers, the Oklahoma humorist. His contract led him to guest appearances in Warner Bros. Television programs, such as Conflict. Hutchins was also cast as a guest star on Cheyenne, Bronco, Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip. He had small roles in the Warners movies Bombers B-52, Lafayette Escadrille, and No Time for Sergeants where he screen tested for the lead of Will Stockdale with James Garner playing the psychiatrist. Hutchins leapt to national fame in the lead of Sugarfoot. During the series' run he guest-starred on other Warner Bros shows such as The Roaring 20's, Bronco, and Surfside 6. Warners tried him in the lead of a feature, Young and Eager aka Claudelle Inglish with Diane McBain. He tried another pilot for a series, Howie, that was not picked up and war in the Warners war film with Jeff Chandler, Merrill's Marauders, a picture filmed in the Philippine Islands and Chandler's last acting role. Hutchins guest-starred on Gunsmoke and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. While appearing in a play in Chicago in late 1963, he was flown to Los Angeles to shoot a television pilot for MGM, Take Me to Your Leader, in which Hutchins played a Martian salesman who came to Earth. Though the pilot was not picked up, it led MGM to sign him for Spinout, in which he co-starred as Lt. Tracy Richards ("Dick Tracy" backwards) alongside Elvis Presley. In 1965, Hutchins co-starred with Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates in Monte Hellman's The Shooting. In 1968–1969, Hutchins starred as Dagwood Bumstead in a CBS television version of the comic strip Blondie. He travelled to South Africa to appear in Shangani Patrol. Back in the United States, Hutchins guest-starred on Love, American Style, Emergency!, Chase, Movin' On, The Streets of San Francisco, and The Quest. He was in The Horror at 37,000 Feet, Slumber Party '57, and The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington. He also began appearing in circuses as Patches the Clown.
Known For

The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.
Perry Mason

An anthology comedy series featuring a line up of different celebrity guest stars appearing in anywhere from one, two, three, and four short stories or vignettes within an hour about versions of love and romance.
Love, American Style

The Maverick boys - Bret, Bart, Beau and Brent - are a clan of well-dressed dandies, gamblers who'd much rather make their money playing cards than messing up their fine clothing with actual work. Sly and clever, none of the Mavericks are much for acts of derring do, but they can be courageous when the situation calls for it. Most often, however, they live by their wits and considerable charm.
Maverick

A continuation of the anthology series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, hosted by the master of suspense and featuring thrillers and mysteries.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

The crew of Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 51, particularly the paramedic team, and Rampart Hospital respond to emergencies in their operating area.
Emergency!

Cheyenne Bodie was a big man, a former army scout who went west after the American Civil War and drifted from job to job, here a cowboy, there a lawman, and always a larger-than-life hero. CHEYENNE is an American western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season. It was also the first series to be made by a major Hollywood film studio which did not derive from its established film properties, and the first of a long chain of Warner Brothers original series produced by William T. Orr.
Cheyenne

Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.
Matinee Theater

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.
Gunsmoke

Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. They work out of an office located at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California, right next door to a snazzy restaurant where Kookie works as a valet. The finger-snapping, slang-talking Kookie occasionally helps Stu and Jeff with their cases, and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the detective agency. Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale also join the firm, and Suzanne is their leggy secretary.
77 Sunset Strip

Two police officers, the older Lt. Stone and the young upstart Inspector Keller, investigate murders and other serious crimes in San Francisco. Stone would become a second father to Keller as he learned the rigors and procedures of detective work.
The Streets of San Francisco

Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
Sugarfoot

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.
Surfside 6

Bronco is a Western series on ABC from 1958 through 1962. It was shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The program starred Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, a former Confederate officer who wandered the Old West, meeting such well-known individuals as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Theodore Roosevelt, Belle Starr, Cole Younger, and John Wesley Hardin.
Bronco

The adventures of a newspaper reporter covering the world of cops and gangsters in 1920s Chicago.
The Roaring 20's

Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.
Maverick

"Dirty" Harry Callahan is a San Francisco Police Inspector on the trail of a group of rogue cops who have taken justice into their own hands. When shady characters are murdered one after another in grisly fashion, only Dirty Harry can stop them.
Magnum Force

Hey, Landlord is an American sitcom appearing on NBC during the 1966-1967 season, sponsored by Procter & Gamble in the 8:30-9pm Eastern time period on Sunday nights. It is notable for its casting director Fred Roos, who later became a producer for Francis Ford Coppola. Roos discovered counterculture sketch group The Committee in San Francisco and cast all members in bit parts in Hey, Landlord.
Hey Landlord!
Conflict is a 1956 ABC series that directly succeeded Warner Brothers Presents. It is most famous for having hosted the effective pilots of 77 Sunset Strip and Maverick. Although it assumed the same time slot as its predecessor, the two do not share the same format. Where Warner Brothers Presents had been a wheel series, Conflict was a fully anthological series. However, since Cheyenne and Conflict alternated the Tuesday 7:30pm time slot, the net effect was that of a proper wheel series—even though Cheyenne and Conflict were not under the same umbrella title. The name change was imposed upon its production company, Warner Bros., by ABC executives who believed that "conflict" was the missing element in Casablanca and King's Row from Warner Brothers Presents. The show does not fit neatly into standard American television seasons. It technically superseded Warner Brothers Presents after Casablanca concluded its run in April 1956. And it seems to have provided at least one week of new material at the beginning of the 1957 season, before Sugarfoot, starring Will Hutchins, took its place.
Conflict

Blondie is an American sitcom that aired on CBS during the 1968-1969 television season. The series is an updated version of the 1957 TV series that was based on the comic strip of the same name. The series stars Will Hutchins as Dagwood Bumstead and Jim Backus as his boss Mr. Dithers, and featured child character actress Pamelyn Ferdin as the Bumstead's daughter, and character actor Bryan O'Byrne as the hapless mailman, always getting run over by Dagwood hurrying out the door, late for work.
Blondie

Roar follows a family who are attacked by various African animals at the secluded home of their keeper.