Tales of the Rodeo King by Phil Bledsoe.

The downside of the 1960s was a turbulent time.

Political assassinations, race riots, the anti-war movement, the sexual revolution.

Everywhere you looked, things seemed to be changing at an ever-escalating rate.

The summer of 1969 alone saw the Stonewall riots, the Chappaquitic scandal,

the Woodstock Music Festival, the Apollo Moon Landing, the Nixon Doctrine, and the Manson murders.

Not far removed from some of these events, but never reported to the general public.

A macabre drama played out between two men whose names many of you may recognize.

Jack McCoy, one of three actors to play Western hero Blaze Bing on the radio,

and the only one to portray the character

in movie serials and on television, was headed into the desert outside Los Angeles to pay a visit

on an old friend, completely unaware of the fate that awaited him.

I'd had a run of bad luck in my career lately. When I made the jump from radio acting to movie

serials back in the 40s, I thought I must have struck gold. Sure, the money wasn't as good as acting

and features, but it sure made things easier for a struggling actor. When my Blaze Bing serials were

re-edited and adapted into the pilot for a television series,

I was sure that the gravy train was never going to stop rolling. I played Blaze Bing the Rodeo

King for almost ten years on TV before I got too greedy and negotiated myself right out of a

contract renewal. Some executive's nephew was cast to replace me,

but his first script reading was so bad that the whole series was scrapped

rather than delay filming to find another replacement.

I wasn't bitter about it at the time.

...