Big-screen cowboy Collier adopted Tucson as his home | Local news

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The gruff, blue-eyed cowboy straight from the central casting also appeared on virtually every major TV series in the Old West, including Bonanza, The Virginian, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Branded, and Death Valley Days “And” Little House on the Prairie “.

But arguably his most famous character was the honorable ranch foreman in “The High Chaparral,” which was filmed at Old Tucson Studios from 1966 to 1971.

Later generations got to know Collier from another role, which he played almost as much. In the early 1980s, he blinked under his cowboy hat and blew bright pink bubbles for Hubba Bubba gum as a “gum fighter” in a series of commercials also filmed in Old Tucson.

That’s roughly the time when Collier made Tucson his home in real life as well.

He later gave his signature voice and sideburns to other national advertising campaigns, commercials for local businesses and television stations, and the University of Arizona-produced PBS show “The Desert Speaks,” for which he more than. acted as the on-air presenter for a decade.

His later successor on the show, David Yetman, said he knew Collier was going to be “a very, very difficult act”.

“He had an adorable personality, full of humor and endless anecdotes,” Yetman said in an email. “I was most impressed by his acting skills. The people at KUAT would provide him with a script. He looked at it for a few moments, then quoted it from memory and added his own note as if he were seasoning a soup. “

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