Andrew Duggan (born December 28, 1923, in Franklin, Indiana; died May 15, 1988, in Westwood, California) was a tall and authoritative character actor who appeared in 70 movies and over 140 television shows between 1949 and 1987. Duggan had recurring roles in Cimarron Strip and The Great Adventure but seldom played the same role twice except in a couple of short-lived series in which he played the lead, Bourbon Street Beat and Lancer. He also had a recurring role in seasons 2 and 3 of the series Twelve O'Clock High as General Ed Britt. Duggan played John Walton in the original 1971 The Waltons movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (the part was played by Ralph Waite in the subsequent series). One of Duggan's last parts was as Dwight D. Eisenhower in a TV biography called J. Edgar Hoover (1987), a role he had played earlier in Backstairs at the White House (1979). He also played Lyndon Johnson in a different biography of Hoover, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977). He portrayed the fictional President Trent in the spy-spoof In Like Flint (1967).
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Bourbon Street Beat
Duggan seemed ubiquitous on television screens in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in practically every narrative television series in production more than once; between new appearances and reruns, it was not unusual to see him on television several times in a single week on different shows. Duggan also played the lead in the television series Bourbon Street Beat (1959), in which he portrayed Cal Calhoun, the head of a New Orleans detective agency. (When Bourbon Street Beat was cancelled after a single season, the two other detectives in the series moved on to other Warner Brothers detective shows: Van Williams as Kenny Madison was easy for viewers to find, since he stayed in the same time slot with the new series Surfside Six, while Richard Long as Rex Randolph assumed ailing Roger Smith's prominent position on the hit series 77 Sunset Strip.)
Lancer
Duggan portrayed the patriarch in a 1969 series inspired by Bonanza called Lancer, playing a darker and more complex counterpart of Ben Cartwright named "Murdoch Lancer," while James Stacy portrayed Lancer's gunfighter son. Unfortunately, unlike Bonanza, Lancer only lasted 51 episodes, but critics cited the scripts and performances as excellent.
Death in 1988
Duggan died of throat cancer at the age of 65; his career had been still going strong when he fell ill.
