Royal Dano was born November 16, 1922 in New York. His career in movies and television began in 1950. This most unusual of character actors often played older roles beyond his years, as saddle tramps and hired hands. He also could play a respectable doctor to a president(Abraham Lincoln). Some of his notable television guest appearances were on "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train", "The Zane Grey Theater", "The Big Valley", and "The F.B.I.". His movie work includes "Moby Dick", "The Trouble With Harry", "King Of Kings", "The Outlaw Josie Wales", and "Spaced Invaders". Dano made four visits to North Fork and "The Rifleman" in different roles between 1959-62. One memorable role was in the episode "The Sheridan Story" as Frank Blandon, a one-armed Confederate veteran of the Civil War, who Lucas takes on as a hired "hand". An army platoon bivouacs at the McCain ranch and Blandon(Dano) comes face-to-face with the soldier who shot him in the war. The now general arranges for Blandon to get expert medical attention for the wound that never healed. Upon receiving opposition from his men, the general states "I am carrying out the last orders of my Commander In Chief 'Bind up the Nation's wounds'". Royal Dano acted into the 1990s. He died May 15, 1994 of a heart attack.