Dennis Holmes, Robert Fuller and Bobby Crawford Jr. speak during a question-and-answer panel in May at the Cowboy Way Jubilee Festival in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
Dennis Holmes, Robert Fuller and Bobby Crawford Jr. speak during a question-and-answer panel in May at the Cowboy Way Jubilee Festival in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
In the 60th anniversary of “Laramie,” an American Western television series, three of the actors from the show will visit Laramie.
“Laramie” aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. The show was set in 1870s Wyoming. It follows the lives of Slim Sherman and Jess Harper, along with Sherman’s younger brother Andy.
Co-stars John Smith and Robert Fuller played the parts of Slim Sherman and Jess Harper. Bobby Crawford was cast as Andy.
In season 3, episode 1, Mike Williams, an orphaned boy, enters the scene. Through a series of events, the boy ends up staying with Sherman and Harper on the ranch. Williams was played by Dennis Holmes.
Co-star Fuller, Crawford and Holmes will visit Laramie this weekend.
“I think I drove through it once on a junior rodeo circuit with my brother in ’63,” Crawford said about Laramie. This will be Holmes’ first time in Laramie.
Crawford and Holmes both explained how as young boys on the show, they looked up to and admired Fuller and Smith.
Holmes told a story about a time he was at dinner with Fuller and a few others. The Japanese restaurant where they ate was next to a tattoo shop.
“Well after they drank sake all night, when they’re walking out, Robert says ‘Hey! I wanna get a tattoo!’” Holmes explained. Fuller then got a tattoo of a cherry and told Holmes, 11 years old at the time, he should get one also.
“And I’m like ‘heck yeah!’ I mean this is my hero,” Holmes said as he explained his reaction to Fuller’s prompting. Fuller’s girlfriend intervened, and Holmes didn’t end up with the cherry tattoo that day, but finally got the tattoo on the back of his leg a couple years ago “in honor of Robert.”
“I remember Fuller gave me a director’s chair at Christmas that first year, with my name on it,” Crawford remembered.
“The shows now are available in a way they haven’t been available in the last 60 years,” Crawford said. He explained they now run on Encore, MeTV and Grit, sometimes every day. “There are millions of people experiencing the show that never saw it,” Crawford continued.
Albany County Tourism Board staff members Mike Gray and Lyndee Johnston planned the weekend events and the Tourism Board approved them.
Beginning today at 10 a.m. at the Laramie Plains Museum, 30 couples will renew their wedding vows in honor of the song “Marry Me in Laramie” from the TV show. The event is ticketed.
The “Laramie” actors will be a part of the Jubilee Days parade Saturday at 9:30 a.m.
There will be two photograph and autograph opportunities. The first is on Saturday from 1-6 p.m. at the University of Wyoming Conference Center. The second opportunity is Sunday from 9 a.m.-noon at the same location.
There will also be a Q&A time from 2-3 p.m., available only to Robert Fuller Fandom members.
The weekend will wrap up with an evening at the Vee-Bar Guest Ranch, 28 miles west of town. The last event will include music, food, wagon rides and rodeo demonstrations with the actors. Tickets for the event, as well as the vow renewal, sold out quickly.
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