James Drury

Born on April 18, 1934 in New York, James Drury  spent his childhood between the Big Apple and his grandfather’s ranch in Oregon, where he learned to ride a horse. He was expelled from the institute when he was about to get his degree, which almost ruined his studies, but his father, a marketing professor at New York University, managed to get him admitted to this institution.

After signing a contract with MGM, he appeared as a supporting role in various titles, such as the science fiction film Forbidden Planet and the westerns Retaliation and Showdown in the High Sierra . But he became famous in 1962 with the television series The Virginian , which made history, being the first broadcast in color, and also because its episodes lasted an hour and a half, when the usual one was one hour. “It was the best experience of my life. I never had a bad day at work,” he recalled. It was enormously successful, to the point that it remained on the air until 1971.

Divorced from Cristall Othoneos, with whom he had two children, he was married to Phyllis Mitchell and Carl Ann Head. The latter has accompanied him until his death. 

At the end of his career, James Drury appeared as a supporting role in other hit series, such as Ironside , or Walker, Texas Ranger . He brought back his most emblematic cowboy in The Virginian , a 2000 telefilm that continued the plot of the series. He also had a cameo in Maverick , where Richard Donner  turned another of the best-known westerns on the small screen in the 1960s into a feature film.