One-hit wonders

We watch an episode or two of Highway Patrol on weekends. I enjoy the show, which was televised from 1955 to 1959, for several reasons. The locations, the cars, the matter-of-fact plots. Brod Crawford, of course, was a well-known actor when he did the series. There's always the possibility that one of his co-stars will hit it big. I've blogged about a couple of them. Mostly, though, the actors seem to have few roles in their imdb.com filmographies.

This morning's show was from Season One, "Released Convict." Bank robbers have half of the clues to the whereabouts of stolen loot and they reunite to pool their resources and recover the stash. One of the men had served time for the robbery and nine months after his release from prison, he still looks to be wearing the cheap suit he was issued.


Mr. Convict waited nine months to connect with the other guy who had clues to the location of the quarter-million-dollar heist. I don't know how he paid his room and board during that period. The Other Guy had a diner.

The diner owner was played by Gary Roark and he seems to be the type of performer Highway Patrol prefers to feature. His on-screen career spanned the same years as HP and he appeared in the show twice.


Paul Sorensen (Mr. Ex-Con in a Cheap Suit) was cut from a different cloth, I guess. He worked steadily on TV, compiling 182 credits over a 35-year career arc. But Sorensen was an outlier. Look over the list of performers who appeared on Highway Patrol. The program provided opportunities for an awful lot of actors to be on television at least once in their lives!

Ooh, the next show features Clint Eastwood, 25, on a motorcycle!