Keep it Together

During the filming of the episode ‘The Vision’ on The Rifleman, Johnny Crawford found himself battling not only his on-screen illness but also a real-life sickness. He shared, “I knew that if the lady who taught me on the set, who was also a welfare worker – it was her responsibility to see that if I was ill, I was removed from the set until I was in proper health. I didn’t want to hold up production and all that, so I tried to keep it a secret from her, but I guess it became somewhat obvious.

The particular scene that we were doing when she discovered or decided that I was really ill was when they were supposed to be packing me in ice. I have a very high fever, and they’re trying to bring it down, and I think that was the first scene we actually photographed for that episode.”