TLDR: Have Gun Will Travel ran on CBS from 1957 to 1963 for 6 seasons and 225 episodes. Richard Boone played Paladin, a mercenary based at the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco who charged $1,000 per job, quoted Aristotle and Shakespeare, and wore a black outfit with a chess knight on his holster.
The show ranked in the top five in Nielsen ratings for four consecutive years. Boone directed 28 episodes himself and died of throat cancer in 1981, his ashes scattered in the Pacific.
His supporting actress Lisa Lu, who played Hey Girl, received her Hollywood Walk of Fame star on May 5, 2025, at age 98, becoming the oldest person ever to receive that honor. She is still alive.
The show airs on the WEST channel.
Every Western on American television in 1957 had a hero in white and a villain in black. Have Gun Will Travel put its hero in black and made him a mercenary who charged $1,000 a job, lived in a luxury hotel suite, collected Ming Dynasty artifacts, and quoted Keats and Voltaire at people who were trying to shoot him.
The show ranked in the top five in the Nielsen ratings every year from 1957 to 1961 and is now considered one of the greatest television Westerns ever made.
Paladin was not a lawman. He was not a drifter. He was a highly educated former soldier who had built a freelance career out of defending people who had nowhere else to turn, at a price they could barely afford.
He operated from the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco, where he ate well, drank fine wine, and waited for the next distress telegram to arrive.
Richard Boone (Paladin): Daniel Boone’s Nephew, Actors Studio Graduate, and the Man Who Directed 28 Episodes
Richard Allen Boone was born on June 18, 1917, in Los Angeles, California. He claimed descent as a seventh-generation nephew of the legendary American pioneer Daniel Boone, a connection that gave him a personal relationship with the frontier mythology he spent his career dramatizing.
He attended Stanford University from 1934 to 1937, not an Ivy League school as some retrospectives claim, Stanford being a California research university, but academically rigorous enough to provide the intellectual foundation Paladin required.
He enlisted in the Navy in 1941 and served until 1945 as an aerial gunner and crewman. After his discharge he used the G.I. Bill to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio in New York, training under Martha Graham and making his Broadway debut in Medea in 1947.
He spent the early 1950s building a television reputation as Dr. Konrad Styner in the medical drama Medic (1954-1956), which unfortunately typecast him. When CBS was developing Have Gun Will Travel, the network initially wanted Randolph Scott. Scott was unavailable. They got Boone instead.
That was a better outcome for everyone.
Boone brought to Paladin a physical quality that no clean-cut television cowboy could have managed: craggy, pock-marked, visibly worn, with a deep voice that suggested someone who had seen things and formed opinions about them.
He was a Method actor who maintained an intense relationship with the character and frequently clashed with directors and network executives over artistic standards.
Over time he negotiated unprecedented creative control, eventually directing 28 episodes himself and pushing the television Western into territory its contemporaries rarely attempted.
After the show ended in 1963 he hosted The Richard Boone Show anthology series and starred as lawman Hec Ramsey (1972-1974). He appeared alongside John Wayne in Big Jake (1971) and Wayne’s final film The Shootist (1976), and voiced Smaug in the animated The Hobbit (1977).
Richard Boone died on January 10, 1981, at his home in St. Augustine, Florida, from complications of throat cancer. He was 63. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii.
What Made Paladin Different From Every Other Western Hero
Paladin carried a business card that read: “Have Gun Will Travel. Wire Paladin, San Francisco.”
Beneath the text was an embossed chess knight. The chess knight was chosen deliberately. It is the only piece on the board that can jump over obstacles, moving in a non-linear L-shaped pattern rather than the straight lines every other piece follows.
It mirrored Paladin’s methodology exactly. He did not resolve conflicts with brute force. He bypassed conventional barriers using legal, tactical, and philosophical maneuvers that his opponents rarely anticipated.
His literary references were constant and specific. He quoted Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Milton, Donne, Shakespeare, and Voltaire.
In the acclaimed episode “The Fatalist,” he quoted from classical rabbinical texts including Pirkei Avot and the Zohar while speaking with a Jewish immigrant, demonstrating a theological literacy that had no precedent in prime-time television.
These references were not decorative. They were the show’s argument: that civilization is not the physical conquest of the wilderness but the preservation of humanistic culture within it.
In San Francisco, Paladin wore tailored suits and attended the opera. On a job, he wore black and worked with lethal efficiency. The contrast was the point. He was a man who chose violence as a last resort not because he lacked the capacity for it but because he understood exactly what it cost.
Kam Tong (Hey Boy): OSS Intelligence Officer and Restaurant Owner
Kam Tong played Hey Boy, the Chinese bellhop at the Hotel Carlton who delivered telegrams and clients to Paladin and served as the human connective tissue between San Francisco’s luxury world and the frontier violence that kept interrupting it.
The name “Hey Boy” reflects the era’s reductive treatment of minority domestic characters. What Kam Tong did with the role was something else entirely.
Born Kam Dai Tong on December 18, 1906, in San Francisco, he served as an intelligence officer with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.
Outside of acting, he owned and operated a celebrated San Francisco restaurant called Shanghai Lil’s. His other credits included a regular role on the CBS series Mr. Garlund and a performance as Dr. Li in the film adaptation of Flower Drum Song (1961).
He infused Hey Boy with dignity and dry wit that consistently exceeded what the character’s job title suggested, and the show wrote Paladin’s relationship with him as one of genuine mutual respect.
One important clarification: Kam Tong is not the same person as Kam Fong Chun, the Hawaiian actor known for Hawaii Five-O who died of lung cancer in 2002. The names are similar enough to have generated persistent confusion in historical databases. They were different people with different careers.
Kam Tong died on November 8, 1969, in Costa Mesa, California, at age 62. The exact medical cause of death is unverified in primary records.
Lisa Lu (Hey Girl): Hollywood Walk of Fame Star at 98
When Kam Tong left the show in 1960 to co-star in Mr. Garlund, the producers introduced Hey Girl, played by Lisa Lu. She appeared in the role for one season while Tong was away.
That one season represents the smallest fraction of a career that spans nearly seven decades. Born in Beijing, trained in Kunqu opera, Lu emigrated to the United States in 1947 and began her American acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1958.
She starred opposite James Stewart in The Mountain Road (1960). She won three Golden Horse Awards in Hong Kong cinema in the 1970s including Best Actress for The Arch (1970) and The Empress Dowager (1975). She appeared in The Last Emperor (1987), The Joy Luck Club (1993), and Crazy Rich Asians (2018).
On May 5, 2025, at age 98, Lisa Lu received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She became the oldest person ever to receive that honor. As of mid-2026, she is alive and active in her late nineties.
Where to Watch
Have Gun Will Travel currently airs on the WEST channel, the free over-the-air network launched by Weigel Broadcasting on September 29, 2025, broadcasting classic Westerns uncut to over half of US households. Six seasons, 225 episodes.
The show is presented in its original unedited broadcast format.
What was Have Gun Will Travel about?
Have Gun Will Travel was a CBS Western that ran from 1957 to 1963 for 6 seasons and 225 episodes. Richard Boone played Paladin, a sophisticated mercenary who lived at the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco, charged $1,000 per job, and was equally comfortable quoting Shakespeare and deploying lethal force. The show ranked in the top five in Nielsen ratings every year from 1957 to 1961 and is considered one of the greatest television Westerns ever made.
Who played Paladin on Have Gun Will Travel?
Paladin was played by Richard Boone, born June 18, 1917, in Los Angeles. Boone trained at the Actors Studio under Martha Graham, served in the Navy during World War II, and brought a craggy physical intensity to the role that no conventional Western actor could have matched. He directed 28 episodes himself and died of throat cancer on January 10, 1981, at age 63. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii.
What does the chess knight mean on Paladin’s business card?
Paladin’s business card bore an embossed chess knight beneath the words Have Gun Will Travel. Wire Paladin, San Francisco. The chess knight is the only piece that can jump over obstacles, moving in a non-linear pattern. This mirrored Paladin’s methodology: rather than resolving conflicts with direct force, he bypassed conventional barriers using legal, tactical, and philosophical approaches his opponents rarely anticipated.
Who played Hey Girl on Have Gun Will Travel?
Hey Girl was played by Lisa Lu, a Beijing-born actress trained in Kunqu opera who emigrated to the United States in 1947. She appeared on the show for one season in 1960. Her subsequent career spanned nearly seven decades, including The Last Emperor (1987), The Joy Luck Club (1993), and Crazy Rich Asians (2018). On May 5, 2025, at age 98, she received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, becoming the oldest person ever to receive that honor. She is alive as of 2026.
Where can I watch Have Gun Will Travel?
Have Gun Will Travel currently airs on the WEST channel, the free over-the-air network launched by Weigel Broadcasting on September 29, 2025, which broadcasts classic Westerns uncut to over half of US households. The show ran for 6 seasons and 225 episodes on CBS from 1957 to 1963.
