Will Hutchins

Will Hutchins (born May 5, 1930) is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer from the Oklahoma Territory, Tom Brewster, in sixty-nine episodes of the Warner Bros. Western television series Sugarfoot, which aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. Only five episodes aired in 1961, including the series finale on April 17. (The Encyclopedia of Television Shows erroneously indicates that Sugarfoot aired from 1957 to 1963.)

Biography
Hutchins was born Marshall Lowell Hutchason in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. As a child, he visited the location filming of Never Give a Sucker an Even Break and made his first appearance as an extra in a crowd.

He attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he majored in Greek drama. He also studied at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he enrolled in cinema classes. During the Korean War, he served for two years in the United States Army as a cryptographer in Paris, serving with SHAPE.

Acting career
Hutchins was discovered by a talent scout for Warner Bros., who changed his name from Marshall Lowell Hutchason to Will Hutchins. The young actor's easygoing manner was compared to Will Rogers, the Oklahoma humorist. His contract led him to guest appearances in Warner Bros. Television programs, such as Conflict, in which he appeared in three hour-long episodes, including his screen debut as Ed Masters in "The Magic Brew" on October 16, 1956. Hutchins was also cast as a guest star on Cheyenne, Bronco, and Maverick, as well as his own Sugarfoot series. He was released from his contract with Warner Bros. in 1961 after co-starring with Jeff Chandler in Merrill's Marauders, a picture filmed in the Philippine Islands and Chandler's last acting role.

While appearing in a play in Chicago in late 1963, he was flown to Los Angeles to shoot a television pilot for MGM, Bert I. Gordon's Take Me to Your Leader, in which Hutchins played a Martian salesman who came to Earth. Though the pilot was not picked up, it led MGM to sign him for Spinout, in which he co-starred as Lt. Tracy Richards ("Dick Tracy" backwards) alongside Elvis Presley, with whom he later appeared in Clambake. In 1965, Hutchins co-starred with Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates in Monte Hellman's The Shooting.

In 1966, he made a guest appearance on the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason as murderer Don Hobart in "The Case of the Scarlet Scandal". He also appeared as Dan Haynes in The New Perry Mason in 1973 in the episode, "The Case of the Deadly Deeds". Actress Jody Foster was in this same episode.

In 1966-1967, he costarred with Sandy Baron in Hey, Landlord, set in a New York City apartment building. The program followed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, but it failed to attract a sustaining audience against CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show and ABC's The F.B.I. with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., his former Warner Bros. colleague. Following that, he appeared as Patches the Clown in Ashton's Circus in Australia. In 1968-69, Hutchins starred as Dagwood Bumstead in a CBS television version of the comic strip Blondie.

Personal life
Hutchins was married to Chris Burnett, sister of Carol Burnett, with whom he had a daughter.

Major appearances

 * 1965, The Shooting (film); Monte Hellman's low-budget Western with Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates.
 * 1966, Spinout (film); Hutchins co-starred as Lt. Tracy Richards with Elvis Presley.
 * 1967, Clambake (film); Hutchins co-stars with Elvis Presley, Shelley Fabares, and Bill Bixby.
 * 1970, Shangani Patrol (film); co-starred as real-life American scout Frederick Burnham in a film based on the actual events of the Shangani Patrol, shot on location in Rhodesia.
 * 1976, The Quest, a short-lived NBC western series, starring Kurt Russell and Tim Matheson.
 * 1998, Gunfighter (film); a modern Western directed by Christopher Coppola.

Filmography

 * Lafayette Escadrille (1958)
 * No Time for Sergeants (1958)
 * Merrill's Marauders (1962)
 * The Shooting (1966)
 * Spinout (1966)
 * Clambake (1967)
 * Shangani Patrol (1970)
 * The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)
 * Magnum Force (1973)
 * Slumber Party '57 (1976)
 * The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977)
 * Maverick (1994; scenes cut)
 * The Romantics (2010)