Posted on 08/21/2015 10:17:33 PM PDT by lowbridge
TV actress Melody Patterson, best known for playing Wrangler Jane on “F Troop,” died Thursday at the age of 66. Patterson died in a nursing home after multiple organ failure, according to reports.
In addition to her starring role on “F Troop” from 1965-1967, Patterson appeared on other television shows of the era including “The Monkees,” “Adam-12” and “Green Acres.” She was also in a handful of episodes of “Hawaii Five-O,” which featured her husband at the time, James MacArthur.
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Rest well Melody Patterson and Frank de Kova!
Very sad, and yes - 66 is way too young. I remember watching F-Troop with my late Dad, and every time during the intro to the program, when the wheel would fall off the cannon and they would shoot the watch tower with the soldier leaping to the ground, Dad would just laugh and laugh.
It always amused me, the story of how the script writers for the series first attempted to name the Indian tribe the “Fugawais”, but when the censors realized the punch line to the story about how the tribe got it’s name was “We’re the Fug-aw-wi?” it was quickly edited to “We’re the Heckawis”
Nice politically incorrect TV. Good times.
My mother-in-law died six years ago. I think she was 68 or 69. Not that old, but she had Parkinson's disease with dementia. So she had an underlying disease.
Yes, she was not of legal working age when she got the part.
Quite sobering when the age of death is this close to our own isn’t it?
I keep fretting about having enough to retire not knowing if it will need to last 30 years or 3. That alone is enough to kill you early the way things are going now.
Simple. Because liberals hate everybody they can’t bend to their agenda.
To be honest, I have been waiting for that idiotic piece of victimhood to come up again since the Washington Redskins thing and have been surprised it hasn’t.
Where the Heckawi?
Larry Storch was on an episode of “Married with Children in the 80s or early 90s. Other than that, I never saw him in anything after F-Troop. He was funny. “A-garn!”
Forrest Tucker later on made a western comedy with Bob Denver {Gilligan} called The Wackiest Wagon Train In The West. F-Troop was one of my favorites growing up. Who was the almost blind cannon-man? Vanderbilt?
He did a lot of stage stuff and I think was in Airport the disaster film
Grew up hard as a really poor JewIsh kid in the Bronx
Funny as hell really playing off straight guy Forrest something or nother
F troop was the counter to Branded which was more dramatic with Chuck Connors
I still have little ones as young as 8 at home me nearing Six Oh and when I try to explain the three network concept and the commonality how we watched the same shows pretty much in a much more intact homogenous non homosexual worshipping country they just can’t comprehend it
Forrest Tucker was a much older B movie actor I remember him in The Crawling Eye.
I read somewhere that she was only 17 when she started on F Troop. That’s why in Season One of the show she had no “kissing” scenes with the Captain.
By the second season of the show she had turned 18 and that’s when the fun began.
F Troop was a great show and Wrangler Jane was a great character.
She was a hoot in that show.
I still watch this program today. Still funny; love the way Forrest Tucker always called her “Janie.” RIP Wrangler Jane - you were so pretty.
Larry Storch still does stand-up in Manhattan. He’s in his early 90s. I’m his “friend” on Facebook. Did many Broadway plays in the 80s and 90s and was in many movies, particularly those directed by Blake Edwards. He WAS hilarious as Agarn. Who says I’m dumb??
Where paleface and redskin both turn chicken.
So is Agent 99 if you are looking for sexy women from 60s TV. My dad thought she was gorgeous.
I always thought she was a beauty!!
So she was 16 when F Troop went on the air? Haven’t seen the show in a long time but still, I doubt that.
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