"The Rifleman" featured the athlete-turned-actor as New Mexico homesteader Lucas McCain, a diligent single father whose child-rearing duties were enlivened by gun battles with ornery varmints whom he dispatched with his trusty modified Winchester rifle. Several notable directors of genre features--Sam Peckinpah, Budd Boetticher, Joseph H. Lewis, Ida Lupino--toiled on this landmark TV Western.
Connors's subsequent series included the cop/attorney drama "Arrest and Trial" (1963-64), opposite Ben Gazzara; the Westerns "Branded" (1965-66) and "Cowboy in Africa" (1967-68); the syndicated documentary "The Thrill Seekers" (1973), which he hosted and narrated; "The Yellow Rose" (1983-84); and the short-lived "Werewolf" (1987). TV movies include "The Police Story" (the 1973 pilot movie for the popular TV series), "The Horror at 37,000 Feet" (1973), "Banjo Hackett: Roamin' Free" (1976) and "Roots" (1977).
Connors contemplated entering politics, but found politicians even more ornery than his old sagebrush adversaries. In 1973, at a party at President Nixon's vacation home, he met an unlikely fan--Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who greeted his favorite actor with a big Russian bear hug. Connors presented Brezhnev with two six-guns. He was also on hand to honor his actor-turned-President friend on a 1985 CBS special entitled "An All-Star Party For 'Dutch' Reagan".