I understand that Universal wanted to get rid of Neville Brand, whose drinking was making it tough for him to consistantly do the series. Akins appeared in 5 or 6 episodes as a substitute but Brand's popularity make it tough for them to dispose of him.
I have never been a Neville Brand fan but no one could replace him in the Laredo dynamic. Claude Akins and George Kennedy (another attempt to replace Brand) are fantastic actors and I love watching them in other shows- just not Laredo.
My mind is aglow with transient nodes of thought
This was one of my favourite western shows in the 1960's. I was watching a couple of young boys most Friday evenings when this show was running. We always looked forward to watching Laredo. I always enjoyed Neville Brand as Reese. I never really liked Claude Akins when he appeared as Cotton and took over from Reese. I feel the show lost something when they dropped Reese.
shareI'm a huge fan of Laredo & have the dvds of this terrific western.I am also a big fan of Neville Brand & always felt any episode without Reese in it was missing a vital ingredient to the show.Claude Akins & George Kennedy were brought in as temporary replacements for Neville due to his unfortunate struggles with alcohol.Both are fine actors but neither of them(or anyone else)could substitute for the Reese character.
shareI guess I'm in the minority. I actually preferred both Claude Akins and George Kennedy to Neville Brand. In addition to alcohol, I heard that Brand was into drugs as well. Brand and Wolders were the two guys on the show I just didn't like. I actually thought the most underutilized guy on the series was Phil Carey as Captain Parmalee. He was a great actor, and in most the episodes, he was just a background character only appearing at the beginning and ending of each episode.
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