Happy Birthday Stacy Keach, Sr!

It would have been Stacy Keach, Sr's 100th birthday today. Sadly, he's not here to see the day, but we can sure celebrate his birthday, by tuning in to one of the wonderful legacies he left behind.

Although Stacy Keach, Sr didn't actually star in any old time radio shows that I'm aware of, he was responsible for the production and direction of one of my all-time favorite Westerns.

The Tales of the Texas Ranger, was a western adventure old-time radio drama, which first premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952. The show was one of the more successful radio shows of the early 1950′s, and was broadcast coast-to-coast every Sunday on NBC, before being made into a television show.

The series was like a "western" version of the many successful detective series aired, such as Dragnet, and This Is Your FBI - re-enactments of actual Texas Ranger case histories, researched with the technical assistance of legendary Captain Manuel T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, a Ranger for over thirty years who was reputed to have killed 31 men during his career.

Starring Joel McCrea as Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson, who used the latest scientific techniques to identify lawbreakers, and with his faithful horse Charcoal, would track them down and bring them to justice.

During the opening credits of the series, you heard "Texas. More than 260,000 square miles, and fifty men who make up the most famous and oldest law enforcement company in North America! Now, from the files of the Texas Rangers, come these stories based on facts. Only names, dates and places are fictitious for obvious reasons. The events themselves are a matter of record!"

There were 95 thirty-minute episodes of The Tales of the Texas Rangers series, of which we have 92 available on RUSC. 

Happy listening my friends,