Barbara Stanwyck To Star in TV Western

Feb. 16, 1965 - ABC announced today that “The Big Valley,” a drama series of early California starring Barbara Stanwyck, would be scheduled from 9 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays next season. “Gidget,” a new comedy series with Sally Field and Don Porter, will be presented from 8:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays.

Armstrong Cork Company will be a sponsor of both shows. The advertiser will not renew its sponsorship of “The Danny Kaye Show” on CBS.

“The Big Valley,” which will filmed in color, is set on the fictional Barkley Ranch in Stockton, Calif., in the 1880’s. The episodes will follow the lives of the Barkley family, one of the wealthiest and largest ranch-owning families in Stockton, led by matriarch Victoria Barkley (Stanwyck), her sons Jarrod (Richard Long) and Nick (Peter Breck), daughter Audra (Linda Evans), and their half-brother Heath (Lee Majors).

“Gidget,” which will also be shot in color, deals with a surfing, boy-crazy teenager called Gidget (Field) and her widowed father Russ Lawrence (Porter), a UCLA professor.

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