The Virginian's real name
Hello,
Can someone tell me what's the Virginian's real name?
"SG"
Believe it or not, he was never given one. He was always known simply as "The Virginian".
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MovieChat Forums > The Virginian (1962) Discussion > The Virginian's real name
No one ever knew. Even Owen Wister (author of the book) didn't give him a name, only The Virginian. James Drury has joked, recently, that "he" knew but it was a secret. The Virginian was the original "Man With No Name".
shareGuess that makes Paladin the "Man with no First Name"?
shareYou know... I had never realized (because I never saw the first one) that his name wasn't even Paladin. Granted, they never told you what it was, but I found out from a friend that he was "given" the name (and gun and money) by the former "Paladin".
shareHa Ha! That's one aspect of the show that truly intrigued me as a TV western viewer. Back in those days in the West i've learned that the cowboys are always asked when meeting another cowboy is "what's your name stranger?" or the cowboy immediately introduces himself. But on The Virginian he always introduced himself as "The Foreman of Shiloh" PERIOD! and no one rarely asked him his name not even the woman he met and fell in love with Ha Ha! The concept of "The Man With No Name" was Brilliant!
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Hi SG,
I believe I have never missed a episode of "The Virginian" & in the Series, Other than "The Virginian" that is the only name he ever had. I have also read this in a Synopsis of the programs cast also. I am almost certain that on 1 of the 'Brief Bios of the Show' on The Westerns Channel they do; right before the Episode starts, Mr. Drury mentioned; his only name on there was "The Virginian". I am a Silver Screen Wrestern Addict & am proud of never missing an episode of Gunsmoke, Big Valley, The Virginian, Wagon Train, Cheyenne , Rawhide and High Chapperal. I know thats saying a lot, but I love my cowboys. In some way, i hope my answer helps. Happy Trails. :-)
Okay so we, the viewers, don't know his name but do the other characters know his name? I mean they may call him the Virginian, but does Judge Garth, Betsy, Trampas etc. know his name? How does he sign his name? The Virginian?
shareWell, in the episode "Riff-raff," when he is announced to Theodore Roosevelt, the soldier calls him "Virginian," without the definite article, so even the ARMY doesn't know.
Authority is the aqua regia of golden character.
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In the 1946 film "The Virginian" I heard him called "Virginia". Sorta like Johnny Cash's "Boy named Sue"?
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It's true, I never heard the Virginian's real name uttered. I know they used other names for him to vary, such as: the Foreman and the Ramrod, but never a first and last name. Odd that! hahaha.
shareYeah, I always wondered that too. I guess he could have called himself whatever he wanted to. None of that crap like drivers licenses, social security cards, income taxes or anything else the feds use to spy on us now. If a man wanted to get a new start back then all he had to do was go out west, call himself John Smith or whatever he wanted to call himself, and just start anew. That's probably what happened to the Virginian. But, like you say I do wonder what friends called him.
shareGreat question! And that's why I'm here, too. To find out.
sharedouble tap-sorry.
shareBack in the 1990's a then contemporary author released a paperback Western call "The Return of the Virginian", that answered this question. It was a "sequel" to the book, not the TV series. However, the author totally pulled a name for the Virginian out of his butt, along with the rest of the book (you might perceive that I did not like this so-called sequel at all). For those who want to know, the Virginian's real name (only in this cheesy sequel) was Jeff Ringo, brother of John Ringo (I told you it was bad).
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living!!!"
Augustus McCrae
Just think of all the awkward silences at dinner parties and dances...which The Virginian's attendance was mandatory.
post script.. Conagher..a perfect Western.I love the way this ranch hand delivered his line.
Conagher and other guys in brief but deadly skirmish.Stage is outside of shed,
men are crammed inside shooting.... at Indians.A break in the action with casualties on ground.Indians collect their dead and leave..!
Cowhand number one.."Do ya think they'll come back?"
Cowhand number two,wounded and perfectly cast "they ain't comin back...they ain't out to win no medals."
I recently finished reading the Owen Wister book, which is the loose basis for the series.
After The Virginian and some of his hands hang some cattle thieves. One of them, who had been a friend of The Virginian's in the past, Steve, left a note for him which says "Good-by, Jeff".
He explains, "Steve used to call me Jeff" ... "because I was Southern I recon. Nobody else ever did."
I took the reference to perhaps be due to Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy.
Simply the first thing that came to mnd.
I've just started watching this show on satellite. I find it weird that others appear to go out of their way NOT to call him by name. In the episode I just watched, he rode up to a ranch house & greeted the woman, something like "Hello, Marianne." All she said was "Hi." Something similar happened several times in the episode, and even when he met new people, even though they or others called themselves by name, "Virginian" never even got his title name in there.
So far, I've heard him called the title name, "The Boss" and "Ramrod".
Agreed he was truly the "Man with no name".
Raylan Givens: I told him he's got 24 hours to get out of town or I'm gonna kill him.
Whole-heartedly agree. This particular gimmick drives me up the wall. One particular episode when The Virginian has fallen in love with a missionary, just like all people in love he's constantly "cooing" her name whenever they're together. Can you imagine her trying to be lovin' and having to call him Virginian? Virg mightn't be so bad but come on! Uuurg! this really bugs me.
I know that one character must at least know his real name because in one early episode (not sure which) He's being introduced along with some other people by Betsy when she get's to the Virginian she just brushes it off and says something along the lines of "Oh you can just call him Virginian everybody does you know." seeming to imply that he's got another name but noone ever uses it and it's not a big deal. Well it is to me darn it all!
"What's in a name? A nose by any other name would still smell." <smile>
I just watched the episode w/ Sherry North (The Saunders Woman) and when the Man With No Name (MWNN) is talking to her it's like this:
Della: I'm Della Saunders.
MWNN: I'm the foreman at the Shiloh Ranch.
My wife doesn't get this irritation. I gave an example- at our church, after the music we socialize, and it would be like this:
Guy: Hi, I'm John.
Me: I'm the foreman at the Shiloh Ranch.
Guy: That's nice, but didn't your parents give you a name?
In the episode, there was a trial. I was hoping for the MWNN to be called as a witness, since everyone called was called by their first and last name. He wasn't called though.
Raylan Givens: I told him he's got 24 hours to get out of town or I'm gonna kill him.
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Is he even from Virginia? He doesn't have a southern accent. James Drury probably didn't want to keep that up for years but in terms of the story it has always irritated me as much as the contrived dialogues and plots to avoid his needing a name. In the Old West there were many people who reinvented themselves and it wasn't wise to press too hard to find out real names and real backgrounds. But if a person were trying to fit in with respectable folk and do respectable things like get married or join the military, he or she would need some name for the forms, even if it were a phony name. He could give a different name for every form, and he could get people to call him Virginian respecting his need for secrecy, but even then there was paperwork.
I figure he left some serious trouble behind him, perhaps a murder charge having to do with the end of the Civil War or Reconstruction when things were chaotic. Unlike in many westerns, though, he wasn't out to avenge anything or prove anything. He just wanted to keep moving until it stopped following him. But there was always a sadness about him because of it. He was never going to go back home. Maybe everyone he loved there had been killed. When a story was set in the latter 1800s and a character was from the South, the War Between the States always loomed over it. We also saw that in Big Valley.
Not only did we never learn his real name, but most of the time the dialogue was constructed so as to not use any name to refer to him, not EVEN "The Virginian", at least when speaking to him directly. He might, for instance, run into an old love interest, and she'd just say something like "Oh, my God. I thought I'd never see you again. How many years has it been?", etc., but artfully never use a name for him!
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