Actor Will Hutchins, best known as TV’s Sugarfoot (1957-61), died on April 21. He was 94. The L.A. native went to UCLA, taking cinema classes on the GI Bill (he was a Korean War vet), and the tall, handsome youngster was soon appearing in such films and TV shows as No Time for Sergeants, 77 Sunset Strip, Maverick, and Surfside 6, before starring in the western Sugarfoot, as an Easterner in the Wild West (think Destry Rides Again). Hutchins acted through 2010, in Perry Mason, Claudelle Inglish, The Shooting, Love American Style, Magnum Force, and, most recently, The Romantics. Hutchins told his friend, film historian Mel Neuhaus, that Sugarfoot cut all the corners they could: “Thank God for all that Warners stock footage. Because so many shots had to be matched, wardrobe worked overtime to supply the clothes from the original pictures we snatched scenes from. One time I got to wear Errol Flynn’s threads, another time Walter Brennan’s. My biggest thrill was wearing Humphrey Bogart’s pants in the ‘Canary Kid’ shows. Couldn’t fill his boots, but sure could fill his pants!”
