From 1962 to 1971, he played the black-hatted ranch foreman who was never identified by name.
In his first attempt at “The Virginian,” in a 1958 TV pilot, Mr. Drury played the character as a dandy with a lace shirt and a Southern accent. Four years later, when the
Slow to anger but quick with a gun when he had to be, Mr. Drury’s character was a moral arbiter in a rough, untamed land.“The Virginian” was the small screen’s first 90-minute western, giving it a dramatic heft rare in television of the time. Mr. Drury said it was almost like making a movie each week. Several episodes were in production at the same time, requiring him to ride his horse from one set to another during taping.
“I patterned my Virginian character after my maternal grandfather, John Hezekiah Crawford, an Oregon dirt farmer and rancher who raised cattle,” Mr. Drury told the Salem Capital Press in 2014. “He came out to Oregon with a wagon train. . . . I’ve always called it the Cowboy Way: If it’s not true, don’t say it. If it’s not yours, don’t take it and if it’s not right, don’t do it. That embodies the philosophy of ‘The Virginian.’ ”Mr.
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