Paul Alden Brinegar Jr. (December 19, 1917 – March 27, 1995) was an American character actor best known for his roles in three Western series: The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Rawhide, and Lancer. Early years Brinegar was born in 1917 in Tucumcari in eastern New Mexico, the first child of Louise (née McElroy) and Paul A. Brinegar, Sr., who was a farmer. His family relocated several times during his childhood, first moving to Alamogordo, then to Las Cruces, and finally to Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, Brinegar became interested in acting, performing in stage productions at his local high school. After his graduation in 1935, Brinegar left Santa Fe to attend Pasadena Junior College in California. There, he studied drama, literature, and art. According to the United States Census of 1940, he was back in Santa Fe by May of that year, living with his parents and his two younger brothers, Warren and Robert. The 1940 census also identifies him at that time as an independent "writer" and his father then as a freelancing "general short-hand reporter". Soon thereafter, young Brinegar joined the United States Navy to serve four years during World War II as a chief radio operator in the South Pacific. After the war, he returned to California, where he applied his military training and experience to earn a living in the Los Angeles area as a radio repairman. He also resumed his pursuit of an acting career in his spare time, playing bit parts in movies. Career Brinegar's first credited appearance in a feature film was in Larceny (1948). From there, he launched a steady film career that slowed considerably in the late 1950s, after he began appearing on television, but did not end until 1994, when Brinegar made his final screen appearance, as a stagecoach driver, in the 1994 film version of Maverick. Brinegar was cast in more than 100 Western films produced between 1946 and 1994, often specializing in playing "feisty, grizzled cowboy sidekicks". On television, from 1956 to 1958, he played James H. "Dog" Kelley, the mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, in the ABC/Desilu series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp starring Hugh O'Brian. Brinegar appears in that series 33 times as Kelley and in one other episode in another role. He also portrays Ludwig, a bartender, in the 1959 episode "The Ringer" of The Texan starring Rory Calhoun. Brinegar, however,