is best remembered as the cattle-drive cook George Washington Wishbone on the CBS series Rawhide (1959–1966). Earlier, he had played a similar role, as the character Tom Jefferson Jeffrey, in the 1958 movie Cattle Empire upon which Rawhide was based. Brinegar also made two guest appearances on CBS courtroom drama Perry Mason. His first appearance on that series, prior to Rawhide, is in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary". His second appearance on Perry Mason is in the series' ninth and final season, in the 1966 episode "The Case of the Unwelcome Well". In the 1968-1970 CBS Western series Lancer, Brinegar had the role of Jelly Hoskins; and in 1969 he appeared in Charro! starring Elvis Presley. Then, in 1973, he played the barman in Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter. From 1982 to 1983, returning to television, Brinegar portrayed a humorous cowboy-like character, Lamar Pettybone, during the first season of the ABC series Matt Houston. Later, he reprised a revised version of his Rawhide Wishbone character for the 1991 TV movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, in which he delivers a brief monologue that contains references to several old television Westerns. Death Brinegar died of emphysema at the age of 77 in Los Angeles on March 27, 1995. His family directed memorial contributions for Brinegar to the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Woodland Hills, California. Filmography Brinegar guest-starred mostly in Westerns, including the Saturday-morning series on CBS, Tales of the Texas Rangers in the 1956 episode "The Hobo". In 1967, he guest-starred in the episode "Take the Southbound Stage" of the NBC series, Daniel Boone, starring Fess Parker in the title role. On October 1, 1966, he was cast as a prospector, Sawbuck, in the episode "Solid Gold Cavity" of the syndicated Death Valley Days. That same month, Brinegar played Rupert Johnson, who entered a partnership to cook for a feisty miner in return for half of the gold findings in the Death Valley Days episode "The Lady and the Sourdough". On June 11, 1969, Brinegar played the Death Valley pioneer Jimmy Dayton (died 1899) in the episode "Jimmy Dayton's Bonanza". TV and film roles (Non-Western roles included) Abilene Town (1946) - Gambler (uncredited) Larceny (1948) - Mechanic Take One False Step (1949) - Reporter (uncredited) Sword in the Desert (1949) - British Soldier (uncredited) Pinky (1949) - Western Union Clerk