getTV Blog

TV Westerns were an endangered species in the mid-1970s, so producers were increasingly forced to get creative with concepts. The Quest put a youthful spin on John Ford’s The Searchers, with two handsome young brothers on the hunt for a sister abducted by the Cheyenne tribe. Based on a well-received 1976 made-for-TV movie, The Quest series has been largely unseen since it first aired. Until now!

Starting April 6, The Quest begins again — every Saturday morning at 7:45a ET on getTV!

Anna Maria Horsford has had an incredible career - one that few actors can match. Her directors have included Steven Spielberg and Mike Nichols. Her co-stars have ranged from Morgan Freeman and Tom Cruise to Cicely Tyson and Lucille Ball. She's appeared in nearly 50 films, starred in multiple hit TV series, and acted in the theatre. And she's not done yet.

What do you do next after playing an iconic character for 12 years? That was the question Sherman Hemsley faced in 1985. The answer was more of the same.

“They wanted the same elements I had as George Jefferson,” Hemsley said of NBC and Carson Productions, producers of his follow-up sitcom Amen. “They wanted the same thing.”

Producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin had the highest rated show on NBC in 1973: Sanford And Son. They also had a cantankerous star — Redd Foxx — who was angling for a sweeter deal. So, perhaps as an insurance policy, Lear and Yorkin added a new face to the cast as production began on the third season.

If they made a Mount Rushmore of TV stars from the medium’s first 75 years, Tom Selleck would be one of the faces etched in stone. From commercials in the 1960s, to primetime guest spots in the 1970s, Magnum, P.I. in the 1980s, and Friends, Jesse Stone, and Blue Bloods ever since, Selleck has remained busy and beloved for half a century.

Television of the 1970s was filled with familiar faces, recognizable actors who made the rounds in sitcoms, dramas, and movies-of-the-week. They may not have been household names at the time (or ever), but you knew them when you saw them.