The chess piece knight embossed on the holster of his six-gun was the clue: Paladin was a knight among outlaws, a chivalrous rider of the Old West. Played by craggy-faced Richard Boone, Paladin was the hero of “Have Gun Will Travel,” the long-running TV western from the late 1950s/early ‘60s. A DVD covering 1961, Season Five, Vol. 2, has just been released.
The character was an interesting holdover from an earlier age of movie serials whose characters like the Falcon and the Saint were mysterious sophisticates who fought crime their own way, with little recourse to the bumbling minions of the law. A wary-eyed figure in black, Paladin was a man of few words and that all were well chose marks good screenwriting as well as a regard for western folklore. Paladin was a cultivated idealist in a Stetson hat who knew as much of history and literature (not to mention the human heart) as he did of handling a gun. He was a standout in an era when western heroes were common, both in number and in background.
