(1968)Bruce EderLong before Frasier made the modern city of Seattle into a prime-time television fixture, this series -- which ran for two seasons at the end of the 1960's -- traded in the city's nineteenth century history. Indeed, Here Come The Brides was one of a relative handful of western television series based directly on an actual incident in history. In the mid-1860's, Asa Shinn Mercer made a major contribution to Seattle's future by importing the one thing that most of the people already living there (almost all of them men) felt was lacking: Women, specifically respectable, marriageable and marriage-minded women. He initially went to Lowell, Massachusetts and brought back 11 women who were eager to find husbands; having succeeded in his first such effort, he made subsequent trips back east, and on one foray, he hoped to persuade as many as 1000 women to make the trip back with him to the Pacific Northwest -- he never got that many, but his efforts and the women (sometimes referred to as the "Mercer Maidens") did contribute to the early permanent settlement of the region. And out of that footnote to the settling of the west came Here Come The Brides, produced by Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems television division, which ran on ABC from the fall of 1968 until the spring of 1970.
Although it was identified as a "western" because of its locale and period, the series was something decidedly new in content and tone in 1968. Here Come The Brides wasn't oriented toward gunplay or action, but focused instead on characters and drama, rooted in romantic, moral, or intellectual conflict, often as not derived from the different ways that men and women look at and resolve problems. The series developed a serious following in its first year as one of the first family-friendly adventure shows aimed at late 1960's sensibilities -- by that time, amid the strife surrounding the Vietnam War and overflowing onto the streets of America's cities, old brands of entertainment were losing their appeal. In place of violence, conflicts were resolved with a mix of humor and drama, and in many ways the show anticipated Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, especially as the series, based on its premise, could never stray far from women's sensibilities; and the show seldom avoided making light of mens' pride and sometimes pig-headed nature. There were also episodes involving confrontations over race prejudice and anti-Semitism (still an unusual subject to broach on most television series at that time), among other topical subjects, and the show's overall message was one of reconciliation.
For its first season, Here Come The Brides aired on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm, which was considered ideal for "family" programming. And it was a hit, understandably so, given the presence of teen idol Bobby Sherman in the co-starring role of Jeremy Bolt, the youngest of the three brothers at the center of the series. Sherman's singing career was taking off at the time, and he was a favorite of the teen magazines of the era and was paired romantically, both on camera and in the coverage he received, with co-star Bridget Hanley, playing Candy Pruitt, the de facto leader of the 100 women brought from the east to Seattle. In real-life, Hanley fell in love with and married the director E. W. Swackhamer, and the two were together for 25 years, from 1969 until his death in 1994 -- and even that wedding only added to the positive vibe that the series generated. Pre-teen and younger teenage girls tuned in for Sherman or for David Soul (in the role of Joshua Bolt, the middle brother), boys watched for Hanley (or for Henry Beckman's antics as the lovable Captain Clancy); meanwhile, Robert Brown, playing oldest brother/patriarch Jason Bolt, drew an audience that included both men who wanted to identify with him and women who were attracted to his melodious voice and tall, rangy good looks, which made him a cross between Burt Lancaster and Errol Flynn; and older viewers took pleasure in seeing Joan Blondell, a veteran of movies from the 1930's, in the role of saloon-keeper Lottie Hatfield. The series also took advantage of its outdoor settings and color production better than any television show this side of Bonanza -- it looked sensational. The show's second season opened out the plots a bit more, and transformed the character of Aaron Stempel (Mark Lenard), originally a rival to the Bolt brothers, into a friend and ally, and also added two young cast members, Eric Chase and Patti Cohoon, as the Hanley character's younger brother and sister.
But just as the series was maturing in its writing and acting, in the summer of 1969 ABC made the decision to move it from Wednesday nights in the early evening to Friday nights at 9pm. The new time-slot proved the kiss-of-death as Sherman's young fans, who would normally have been out on Friday nights, fell away, followed by most of the rest of its younger viewers. The show's ratings collapsed soon after and it went out of production midway through the season. Ironically, despite having fewer than 50 episodes on hand, Here Come The Brides was immediately sold into syndication, mostly thanks to Sherman's lingering popularity, and was seen in local station reruns throughout the 1970's. The theme song, "Seattle," co-written by Hugo Montenegro, Jack Keller, and Ernie Sheldon, was recorded by both Bobby Sherman and Perry Como, each of whom charted with it during the run of the show. Montenegro's version, with vocals by a group called the New Establishment, was used later in the original run of the show; and a French version of the song, in a choral setting, did extremely well as a commercial release in Quebec.
The casting in Here Come The Brides of Mark Lenard -- an actor best known during the final three decades of his career for his work on Star Trek portraying the father of Mr. Spock, the character played by Leonard Nimoy -- in the role of Aaron Stempel led to an odd extension of the western series' influence in the 1980's, some 15 years after it left the air, into the realm of science fiction. The 1985 Star Trek pastiche novel Ishmael, authored by Barbara Hambly, offered a plot in which Spock goes on a mission through time into Earth's past, to Seattle in the 1860's, in order to save Aaron Stempel from a Klingon attempt to kill him, which is part of a plot to prevent the eventual establishment of the United Federation of Planets two centuries hence. In the course of this "cross-over" adventure, Spock discovers that Stempel is one of his own Earth-born mother's ancestors.
Robert Brown, David Soul, and Bobby Sherman were the stars of Here Come The Brides, which ran on ABC from September of 1968 until April of 1970, portraying Jason, Joshua, and Jeremy Bolt, respectively. The three brothers, living in Seattle in the year 1865, own nearby Bridal Veil Mountain. Left to them by their parents, who died some years before -- while Joshua and Jeremy were very young boys -- the mountain is a potentially vast source of timber, and provides employment for much of the area. But in the opening episode, the Bolts are about to lose all of their loggers because of the sheer remoteness of the Pacific Northwest, and the lack of one thing that the men regard as essential: Women -- more specifically, young, respectable, marriageable women. Jason Bolt (Robert Brown) strikes a bargain with the loggers: He'll bring 100 women to Seattle, all of marriageable age and seeking husbands, who will stay at least a year, if the men will keep working. In order to raise the money for the voyage east, the Bolts are forced to take a loan from Aaron Stempel (Mark Lenard), the owner of the local sawmill, which comes with one pre-condition -- if any of the women leaves in less than a year, the Bolts will default on the loan and ownership of the mountain will pass to Stempel. Jason, Joshua, and Jeremy head to New Bedford, Massachusetts, a city left largely bereft of younger men in the wake of the ravages of the Civil War, and find women doing all sorts of jobs usually done by men -- the first time they meet Candy Pruitt (Bridget Hanley), she's doing maintenance on a fire engine. It requires some selling (and conning) by Jason to get 100 women to go west, on a broken-down mule boat commanded by Captain Roland Francis Clancy (Henry Beckman). They're disenchanted with the boat and the town that they find at the end of their journey, but Candy Pruitt, who becomes they're de facto leader, is persuaded to stay on and persuades the rest of the women to try it for a year. She also develops the beginnings of a romantic attraction to Jeremy Bolt (Bobby Sherman). The youngest and most sensitive of the brothers, Jeremy talks with a stutter, which tends to make him sound even less sure of himself than he really is. Joshua Bolt (David Soul), the middle brother, is often caught between Jeremy and oldest brother Jason, acting as an intermediary between the two. The series' conflicts are often resolved with help from Lottie Hatfield (Joan Blondell), the owner of the local saloon, who becomes something of a mother hen to the New Bedford women.
The other key characters on the show included Aaron Stempel, the sawmill owner who, in the first season, often played the role of villain in his attempts to maneuver the Bolts into losing their bet and their mountain. Also prominent in many episodes was Big Swede (Bo Svenson), the strongest of the loggers, Biddie Cloom (Susan Tolsky), Candy Pruitt's closest friend, and Captain Clancy, the mule boat captain, whose interest in Miss Lottie brings him back to Seattle on a regular basis. Most of the episodes dealt with the Bolts struggling to meet quotas and keep the women happy, or the romantic conflicts that inevitably resulted from men and women living in relatively spartan conditions amid competing relationships, although there were also episodes that focused on the complex relationship between the Bolt brothers, and Jason's dual-role as sibling/patriarch; and other episodes that addressed issues of racism and other prejudices, amid the rapidly changing post-Civil War world.
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