Branded (1965–1966) Cast Then and Now 2026 | Shocking Changes 61 Years Later!

Branded (1965-1966) cast then and now in 2026, and the shocking changes 61 years later in the life of the man at the heart of it. Every Sunday night on NBC, Chuck Connors walked out of an Army fort as Jason McCord, a cavalry captain stripped of his rank, his saber snapped in two, branded a coward for something he never did. Branded ran for 48 episodes between Walt Disney and Bonanza, and it was the western Connors made after The Rifleman. This is the full then and now story of the star who carried Branded almost alone. Born Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors in Brooklyn, he shattered a glass backboard with the Boston Celtics, batted exactly once for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and talked his way into Hollywood for five hundred dollars. We follow how Branded came to NBC without a pilot, why creator Larry Cohen wrote it as a story about the Hollywood blacklist, and how that hidden meaning ended his friendship with his star. You will see John Carradine as General Joshua McCord, Kamala Devi, the actress Connors married on his own birthday, and Johnny Crawford, his Rifleman son, riding back in as a guest. Then come the years after Branded: a safari series, spaghetti westerns, a hug from Leonid Brezhnev, an Emmy nomination for Roots, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And at the end, the stone in San Fernando Mission Cemetery that tells you exactly how he wanted to be remembered. If you grew up with Branded, The Rifleman and the classic TV westerns of the 1960s, tell us in the comments which Chuck Connors role you remember best. Subscribe for more cast then and now stories and where are they now retrospectives of the stars you loved.