Making sense of the "Gambler/Brady Hawks universe"

[TMC]

So in 1991, Kenny Rogers along with Reba McEntire, starred in the fourth Gambler television movie, The Luck of the Draw. The movie was particularly notable because it features cameos from numerous old western TV characters as played by their original characters.



Those being:

• Bart Maverick from Maverick
  
• Wyatt Earp from Wyatt Earp: His Life and Legend
  
• Bat Masterson from Bat Masterson
  
• Cheyenne Bowdie from Cheyenne
  
• Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu (which would also pull in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, in which the character Cheyenne Bowdie also appeared again)
  
• Lucas McCain from The Rifleman
  
• "Wishbone" the chuck wagon cook from Rawhide
  
• Two cowboys played by James Drury and Doug McClure were obviously Trampas and the Virginian from The Virginian, although their names were not used
  
• The movie comes to a climax at a high stakes poker tournament in San Francisco in a hotel owned by the late gunfighter Paladin of Have Gun, Will Travel.
  
• It also features Brian Keith as The Westerner. There was also a detail which allows us to precisely date the action. In the middle of the story the characters pass through Virginia City on the day John L. Sullivan lost his boxing title to Gentleman Jim Corbett. The fight happened on September 7, 1892, though in "our" universe it was held in New Orleans. However, references to the San Francisco earthquake probably place this story in 1906.