Chuck Connors, the steely-eyed actor who played a quick-draw homesteader on television's "The Rifleman" during the 1950s and '60s, died of lung cancer Tuesday at 71.
The 6-foot-5 Connors played professional baseball and basketball and later picked up roles in such movies as "Pat and Mike," "Target Zero" and "Hold Back the Night" before getting his big break on TV.In "The Rifleman," which ran from 1958 to 1963, he played Lucas McCain, a New Mexico homesteader raising a motherless son and packing a Winchester rifle that he cocked as he drew.
Connors starred in the '60s TV series "Branded," in which he played a cavalry officer accused of cowardice.
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He won an Emmy nomination as a slave owner in the miniseries "Roots."