I don't get taking turns with Jack Kelly as the star of the show. I can see bringing in a co-star if the workload is too heavy, but not taking every other week off. Other shows and stars didn't do it. He was young and strong, why the need for so much time off? It makes him seem sorta pretty-boy lazy.
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And then the British cousin (Roger Moore) was added.
And then future Big Valley costar (Peter Breck) was added.
Had Maverick had the staying power of Bonanza or Gunsmoke how many costars would there have been in later years?
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Garner was just beginning a fairly successful run as a leading man, so the time off from the show helped him in that regard.
No blah, blah, blah!
Clint also had to take time away from Rawhide so he could appear in films. And unlike Marverick, I love seeing CE on Rawhide. He's young and handsome, but more importantly, he has this tentative, almost dopey quality. Gil Favor is the trail boss, and Rowdy is his aide-de-camp, and Yates isn't sure he's up to the task. A great turn for a guy who's usually front and center in control, although he did have some roles which were a little lighter, like Bronco Billy.
shareGarner wasn't lazy. The story goes that it was taking eight or nine days to complete a single episode. Jack Kelly was added so that episode N+1 could be started even if episode N hadn't been completed.
shareThis is the correct answer.
shareRight, they needed to deliver an episode per week to the network, but filming each episode took over a week. Maverick was in nearly every scene, so a second unit to film non-Maverick scenes wouldn't have been much help. (Besides, now that we're watching the show on DVD, it's painfully obvious that a large percentage of non-Maverick screen time is stock footage.) So they basically had a Garner unit and a Kelly unit, at least for the first three seasons.