Paul Fix

In the 1950s, Fix was best known for portraying Marshal Micah Torrance alongside Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford in The Rifleman.

Fix was born Peter Paul Fix in Dobbs Ferry, New York, to brewmaster Wilhelm Fix and his wife, the former Louise C. Walz. His mother and father were German immigrants who had left their Black Forest home and arrived in New York City in the 1870s. (The name "Fix" is of Latin/Germanic origin, and is derived from St. Vitus and means "animated" or "vital").

A veteran of the United States Navy during World War I, Fix became an incredibly busy character actor who got his start in local productions around his New York home. By the 1920s he had moved to Hollywood and performed in the first of almost 350 movie and television appearances. In the 1930s, he became friends with John Wayne, serving as Wayne's acting coach, and eventually appearing as a featured player in about twenty-seven of his films. Read Less

Fix plays Rufus Stewart, a businessman who hires David Manning, played by Richard Basehart, a man with an ill wife who is in need of medical treatment, to substitute in the American Civil War for Stewart's son, Adam`, portrayed by Richard Anderson. Manning, who won a Medal of Honor, returns from three years in the United States Army with an affidavit certifying that he was a military substitute so that he can claim western land. Rufus Stewart reneges on the promise because the son, the local sheriff, is running for the United States House of Representatives. Oddly, Rufus winds up being shot to death in a confrontation that he caused, and Adam agrees to provide the affidavit to Manning. The episode does not reveal if the sheriff was elected to Congress but considers the political liability of one having hired a substitute in the war. Read Less