EMPIRE (1962-1963) – Ryan O’Neal, Charles Bronson, Richard Egan and Terry Moore starred in this modern-day (1960s) drama about a family ranch in New Mexico.
Kathleen Hite created the hour-long series which was not a soap opera but was instead a straightforward tale about the travails of ranching deep into the 20th Century.
RICHARD EGAN starred as Jim Redigo, the brawny ranch manager with an MBA. That was an intriguing idea, and this character helped capture the new complexities of operating a ranch in the modern era while retaining the raw machismo that 1960s viewers would have expected from a ranch manager.
ANNE SEYMOUR portrayed Lucia Garret, the widowed owner of the Garret Ranch. The ranch had been built up over the years by Lucia, her late husband and Jim Redigo. She and Redigo sometimes clashed over what was best and most profitable for the Garret Ranch while weathering the challenges they faced.
RYAN O’NEAL played Tal Garret, Lucia’s son who was being groomed to take over the family ranch one day. His relationship with Redigo went from being like an uncle and nephew to more like a father and son but Tal struggled for the respect that he felt the older man was not giving him. Neither as a young man nor a rancher. Continue reading
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