Ty Hardin, a popular film and television actor who starred as the gentle gunman Bronco Layne in the TV western “Bronco,” died Aug. 3 in Huntington Beach, Calif. He was 87.
Mr. Hardin first saddled up for the ABC series “Cheyenne,” an hour-long western that had previously featured Clint Walker as the title character, Cheyenne Bodie. When Walker left the show in 1958 over a contractual dispute, Mr. Hardin — a newcomer from Texas, helped along by an introduction from John Wayne — stepped in as Layne, a former Confederate Army captain who roams the West in search of adventure and high ratings.
The character was a hit with viewers, and when Walker returned to the show in 1959, Mr. Hardin was given a spinoff series, "Bronco."
“Ty Hardin, the hero, is a handsome, callow cowhand,” Richard F. Shepard wrote in a New York Times review of the new show, “not as frivolous as Bret Maverick, but then again, not as omnipotent as Marshal Dillon nor as righteous as Wyatt Earp.”
The series was featured on ABC’s western rotation, alongside “Cheyenne” and the Will Hutchins show “Sugarfoot,” until August 1962, with Mr. Hardin’s character appearing alongside historical figures such as Wild Bill Hickok, Belle Starr, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Cole Younger and Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr. Hardin's character bore a Colt .45 (its inscription read, "Courage Is the Freedom of Honor"), a pocketwatch that played "Deep in the Heart of Dixie," and — for a time — a pet cat named Elmira. His name, according to the show's theme song, followed from his talent as a rider: "There ain't a horse that he can't handle; that's how he got his name."
The actor, on the other hand, was born Orison Whipple Hungerford Jr. He took the name Ty Hardin — according to some news accounts, Ty was short for a childhood nickname, Typhoon, and Hardin was a reference to the western outlaw John Wesley Hardin — after signing with Warner Bros.
Born in New York on Jan. 1, 1930, Mr. Hardin grew up in Texas and attended Blinn College in Brenham, Tex., before serving in the Army during the Korean War. He studied electrical engineering at Texas A&M University upon his return and played football until a leg injury led him to take up acting.
Mr. Hardin moved to Los Angeles in 1957 and had small parts in Paramount movies and the CBS anthology series “Playhouse 90” before his starring role in “Cheyenne.”
He appeared in the World War II movies “PT 109” (1963) and “Battle of the Bulge” (1965), and starred alongside Joan Crawford in the British horror film “Berserk!” (1967) before decamping to Spain, where he ran laundromats and restaurants and at one point was jailed for drug trafficking.
“I had lost my drive to live,” he said later, according to the biographical source “Television Western Players, 1960-1975.” “I was into smoking dope and drinking. I was just short of suicide when the Lord found me.”
Mr. Hardin, who was married eight times, including to the 1961 Miss Universe beauty queen Marlene Schmidt, became a minister in Arizona.
After struggling with tax issues, he founded an anti-tax organization that became the extremist anti-government group the Arizona Patriots. The organization disbanded after federal agents raided one of its camps in 1986.
A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.
Mr. Hardin turned down a starring role in "A Fistful of Dollars," the 1964 spaghetti western that helped Clint Eastwood become a star, and spurned William Dozier, the creator of the campy television series "Batman." Dozier had envisioned Mr. Hardin as the Caped Crusader. Instead, the role went to Adam West, who died in June.
He appeared in occasional movies and films in recent years, returning to the Old West for the 1988 TV movie “Red River,” as Cotton, and playing Colonel Sanders in the 2011 comedy “The Back-up Bride.”
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