Bing Russell
Although best known as the deputy on Bonanza (1959) and Robert in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Russell's was also well known on a national level as the owner of the Portland Mavericks Baseball Club. Helming the only independent team in the class A Northwest League, Russell was an innovator. Before Bull Durham (1988), there were the Mavericks. Russell kept a 30 man roster because he believed that some of the players deserved to have one last season. His motto was simply one three lettered word - not WIN - although the Mavericks did just that - no, the word was FUN. He created a park that kept all corporate sponsorship outside the gates, hired the first female general manager in professional baseball, and the following year hired the first Asian American GM/Manager. That same season his team set a record for the highest attendance in Minor league history, and went on to win the pennant. Ex-major leaguers and never-weres who couldn't stop playing the game flocked to his June tryouts, which were always open to anyone that showed up. From as far away as Capetown, and France, players would head to Portland for a chance with Russell's Mavericks.
Known for
The Battered Bastards of Baseball
Dick Tracy
Tango & Cash
Sunset
Overboard
Elvis
The Loneliest Runner
The New Daughters of Joshua Cabe
The Apple Dumpling Gang
Death Sentence
The Sex Symbol
The Rockford Files
Petrocelli
A Cry in the Wilderness
Runaway!
Satan's School for Girls
The Streets of San Francisco
Now You See Him, Now You Don't
Emergency!
A Taste of Evil
The Million Dollar Duck
Yuma
Alias Smith and Jones
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
The Mod Squad
The Outcasts
Journey to Shiloh
Blackbeard's Ghost
Mannix
The Guns of Will Sonnett
Dundee and the Culhane
Ironside
The Monkees
The Monroes
An Eye for an Eye
Madame X
I Dream of Jeannie
The Big Valley
The Hallelujah Trail
Branded
Cheyenne Autumn
The Munsters
One Man's Way
The Fugitive
A Gathering of Eagles
The Stripper
How the West Was Won
Stoney Burke
The Virginian
Sam Benedict
Ben Casey
The Magnificent Seven
Route 66
Surfside 6
Stagecoach West
The Andy Griffith Show
Tate
The Alaskans
The Twilight Zone
Laramie
Bonanza
Last Train from Gun Hill
The Horse Soldiers
Rio Bravo
Black Saddle
Rawhide
Good Day for a Hanging
The Rifleman
The Texan
The Donna Reed Show
Bronco
Wanted: Dead or Alive
Cattle Empire
Suicide Battalion
Ride a Violent Mile
Bombers B-52
The Land Unknown
Harbor Command
Maverick
Sugarfoot
Have Gun, Will Travel
The Deadly Mantis
Teenage Thunder
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Attack
Man Called X
Gunsmoke
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
Cult of the Cobra
A Life at Stake
Lassie
Letter to Loretta
Big Leaguer
The Living Christ