Series Description

The Defenders TV show was a 60 minute legal action series on CBS about recent law school graduate who teems up with his father (also a Lawyer) to tackle cases that were highly sensitive in the 1960's such as abortion and anti-american cases.

The Defenders Cast

E.G. Marshall .... Attorney Lawrence Preston
Robert Reed .... Attorney Kenneth Preston

The Defenders Trivia:

The series was filmed in New York City on 35 milimeter film.

You probably know Robert Reed better as the dad on "The Brady Bunch" but he'd rather you think of him for his roles on shows like this one. Reed began his career as a Shakespearean actor with role on off-Broadway in plays including "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In his final years he even taught Shakespearean acting at UCLA! Reed reluctantly took the role as Mike Brady figuring that it would give him some exposure to a wide audience and the series probably wouldn't last long anyway. We all know how that turned out! The show was a hit and Reed liked doing it less and less as the years rolled by. He often had disagreements with Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz about the storylines, feeling that serious issues affecting families and teens should get more emphasis. Of course, the show was basically a silly comedy but Schwarz often gave in to Reed's insistence because Reed's ideas often resulted in episodes that got higher ratings. The end result was that the combining of comedy with a hint of drama made the Brady Bunch a much better series and future sitcoms often copied that technique!

The Defenders was a "spinoff" of the series, "Studio One in Hollywood". The characters were played on a two-part episode titled, "The Defender" that aired on the 25th of February and the 4th of March in 1957. The main characters were played by Ralph Bellamy, William Shatner ("$#*! My Dad Says") and Steve McQueen on those episodes.

The Defenders TV show garnered numerous awards including 13 Emmys and a Golden Globe!

E.G. Marshall never disclosed what the initials "E.G." stood for. His typical roles were that of a methodical and proper person who never cracked a smile but that was nothing like his real life personality. He commonly told jokes on set and they were often dirty jokes! He also surved as host of the "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" for an amazing 1399 episodes and starred on the series, "The Bold Ones: The New Doctors"!

The Museum of Broadcast Communications referred to The Defenders as "perhaps the most socially-conscious series the medium has ever seen". The series was, "singularly resonant with New Frontier liberalism". This reference referred to the fact that the lawyers obviously believed that defendants must be given the best possible defense no matter how disgusting the crime they're accused of in order to preserve freedom for us all. The defended people accused of being pornographers, draft evaders, Nazis, mercy killers and even a schoolteacher who lost his job because he didn't believe in God.

Episode #30, "The Benefactor" was about the defending of an abortionist and it was so controversial that all of the series' regular advertisers pulled their ads at the last moment and the producers had to rush to find other advertisers.