Wagon Train by Robert Horton (2024)

# Meade Howard Horton, Jr. (July 29, 1924 – March 9, 2016), known as Robert… Read Full Bio ↴# Meade Howard Horton, Jr. (July 29, 1924 – March 9, 2016), known as Robert Horton, was an American television and stage actor.

In his six decades of television, Horton became known for his nice, rugged voice, who was also most noted for his role, from 1957 to 1962, of the frontier scout Flint McCullough in the NBC Western television series, Wagon Train. His co-stars were Ward Bond, John McIntire, Terry Wilson, and Frank McGrath. Horton quit the series to pursue a career in musical theater. His Wagon Train role was replaced by that of Robert Fuller as the scout Cooper Smith, and thereafter the series moved to ABC. Fuller, a veteran of the western series Laramie, resembled Horton and the two actors coincidentally shared the same birthday, albeit nine years apart.
He went on to perform for many years in theaters and nightclubs all over America and in Australia as a singer (sometimes with his wife, the former Marilynn Bradley). In 1963, producer David Merrick hired him as the male lead in the musical version of N. Richard Nash's play The Rainmaker (entitled 110 in the Shade), in the part played on the screen by Burt Lancaster. The musical, which boasted a score by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, ran for 330 performances on Broadway.

Horton was born in Los Angeles, California, Horton attended Hollywood High School, who also graduated cum laude from UCLA.
Horton played Ronald Reagan's role in the television version of Kings Row (1955), which featured Jack Kelly and ran for seven episodes as part of the Warner Bros. Presents series, rotating with a television version of Casablanca and Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker, the first television western in a 60-minute format.

The ruggedly handsome Horton made dozens of appearances in movies and television shows between 1951 and 1989, including a small role in the film Bright Road starring Dorothy Dandridge, an episode of Ray Milland's CBS sitcom, Meet Mr. Mcnu*tley, and on the syndicated Sheriff of Cochise, starring John Bromfield. Horton played Corporal Tom Vaughn in the 1956 episode "False Prophet" of the religion anthology series, Crossroads.

Horton appeared on seven episodes of the anthology series, Alfred Hitchco*ck Presents, including memorably as a tennis-playing bookie and blackmailer opposite Betsy von Furstenberg in "The Disappearing Trick", directed by Arthur Hiller. He was cast as Danny Barnes in the episode "No Place to Hide" of the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson and on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood and NBC's anthology series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show. He appeared several times also on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.

He went on to perform for many years in theaters and nightclubs all over America and in Australia as a singer (sometimes with his wife, the former Marilynn Bradley). In 1963, producer David Merrick hired him as the male lead in the musical version of N. Richard Nash's play The Rainmaker (entitled 110 in the Shade), in the part played on the screen by Burt Lancaster. The musical, which boasted a score by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, ran for 330 performances on Broadway.

Horton is also remembered for his offbeat role as a cowboy amnesiac in his 1965-1966 ABC television series A Man Called Shenandoah. Horton even took a turn in daytime soap operas, having played the part of Whit McColl from 1983 to 1984 on CBS's As the World Turns. In 1966, he starred in "The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones", the first Western made specifically for television and simultaneous distribution to cinemas in Europe. It was made by MGM and co-starred Sal Mineo and Diane Baker.

Horton was also an accomplished pilot and aircraft owner, having once said in a 'Plane and Pilot' interview, "His three greatest thrills were his first solo flight, a performance before Queen Elizabeth II, and being featured on Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life. His frequent copilot was his French Poodle, "Jamie".

In addition to his love of flying, he spent a great deal of time on his hobby, collecting and driving, vintage, mid-century automobiles.

Horton was the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards for television, including the prestigious Golden Boot, and recently the Cowboy Spirit Award at the National Festival of the West. Since December 31, 1960, he was married to stage actress Marilynn Bradley, who limited her professional appearances on stage, with him. Horton and his wife also resided in the Encino section of Los Angeles for over 55 years, in the same home. His beloved residence, as well as several pieces of notable furniture in the home, was built by the actor and woodworker, George Montgomery.

Actor and longtime friend, Robert Fuller is sometimes described as having replaced Horton on Wagon Train. Though Fuller did have a role on the program after Horton departed, according to an August 17, 2009 interview with Fuller in On Screen and Beyond, he did not replace him. The two are sometimes confused with each other because of a general physical resemblance and because they have the same birthday, July 29, though Horton is nine years older than Fuller.

Following his 85th birthday in 2009, Horton announced, through his publicist, he would no longer be making any personal appearances. He claimed he was growing tired of the traveling.[5] In 2014, Horton celebrated his 90th birthday. In honor of his nonagenarian birthday, the Presentation of the Western Legend Award was bestowed to him.

Horton died on March 9, 2016, at the age of 91, in a rehabilitation clinic in Los Angeles, California.

#2 Sleep, Wake, Hope, and Then are the most recent pieces by Robert Horton, striving to create an album full of recordings that shimmer and change the light.

On two pieces Horton enlists the magic of gong-ologist and percussionist Dean Moore. Dean is a hidden treasure who lives and plays in Seattle and is a member of the group Yuan, along with Horton, Michael Shannon and Edward Guerriero.

The rest of the pieces are Horton conjuring spirits with his homemade instruments, teasing objects with contact microphones, squeezing tones till they splinter into high harmonics and weaving webs of fractured bytes into modal vodka.

Horton's has performed and recorded for almost 30 years in a variety of outlets. He founded the Appliances, part of SF's first wave of punk bands in 1979, and formed the tribal noise drone group Plateau Ensemble in 1983. Since then, he has been a prominent contributor to the last two revolutions in home recording, both the cassette culture of the 80s and 90s and the CDR zeitgeist of the 00s.

Robert records under his own name, Egghatcher, and Future Ears. He is currently a member of Kyrgyz, Beautiful Friend, Infinite Article, Broken Mask, and the duo with Tom Carter.