Bat Masterson (TV series)
television series
Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which was a fictionalized account of real-life marshal, gambler, and journalist Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry, and the half-hour black-and-white series ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961. The show was produced by Ziv Television Productions. "Bat" is a nickname for Masterson's first name Bartholemew, although the fictional Masterson says that his name is William Barkley Masterson.
The series was based on the biography Bat Masterson by Richard O'Connor, as noted in the closing credits.
Overview
The fictionalized Masterson dressed in expensive clothing, including a walking stick with a hidden sword. He preferred to use his cane rather than a gun to get himself out of trouble. He was portrayed as a ladies' man who traveled the West looking for women and adventure. He also came to the aid of innocents wrongly accused of crimes.
Cast
Main cast
Gene Barry as Bat Masterson (108 episodes)
Allison Hayes as Ellie Winters (7 episodes)
Allen Jaffe as belligerent drunk (7 episodes)
Ken Drake as Burdette (6 episodes)
Troy Melton as government agent (6 episodes)
Episodes
Production
Development
The series is a fictionalized account of the life of real-life Bat Masterson, who had been an Army scout, Indian fighter, lawman, and a deputy of Wyatt Earp.
The public source identifies “Bat Masterson (TV series)” as television series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Masterson, series and television.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2887756. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bat Masterson (TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.