aging detective in Scene of the Crime (1949), played a police commissioner in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), a sheriff in the 1960 Hitchcock thriller Psycho and a reverend in the 1960 drama Elmer Gantry starring Burt Lancaster, but Though he technically played a supporting part, McIntire received top billing and his greatest critical acclaim for his portrayal of real-life reform politician Albert Patterson assassinated by the local gangsters in the fact-based crime movie The Phenix City Story (1955). In the mid-1950s, McIntire moved into television, appearing in anthology series, sitcoms and dramas. He guest-starred as Judson in the episode "Chinese Invasion" of NBC's one-season western series, Cimarron City, with George Montgomery and John Smith. McIntire procured a regular role on ABC's Naked City, before his character was killed off. McIntire was cast from January to May 1961 in the supporting role of Pa Canfield in the NBC American Civil War drama The Americans.. Though McIntire had never played the lead in a theatrical film, television provided him with his most prominent and long-running role when in 1961 he replaced the late Ward Bond in the NBC/ABC series Wagon Train, playing trailmaster Chris Hale in more than 150 episodes between 1961 and 1965. His co-stars were Robert Horton, Robert Fuller, Denny Scott Miller, Terry Wilson, Frank McGrath, and Michael Burns. In 1960, McIntire guest-starred as William Palmer in the series finale, "The Most Dangerous Gentleman", of the short-lived NBC western Overland Trail, starring William Bendix and Doug McClure, his subsequent co-star on The Virginian. Also in 1960 John starred in a The Twilight Zone episode "The Chaser" where he played a mysterious purveyor of potions. McIntire guest starred twice in the western TV series Bonanza: he played Sheriff Mike Latimer in the 1961 episode "The Bride" and he portrayed Old Charlie Conners in the 1966 episode "Old Charlie". In 1967, he guest-starred in an episode of CBS's short-lived western, Dundee and the Culhane. McIntire replaced actor Charles Bickford (who had himself replaced Lee J. Cobb) on NBC's The Virginian in 1967 when Bickford died (the second time McIntire replaced the leading man in a television series after the lead died, the first being Ward Bond in Wagon Train). McIntire played Clay Grainger, the brother of Bickford's character for four seasons, a major recurring leading role in a weekly 90-minute western series similar in size and scope to his earlier work on