Claim: James Garner starred in American television series.

Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins . The show ran from September 22 , 1957 to July 8 , 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick , an adroitly articulate cardsharp . Eight episodes into the first season , he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart Maverick , and from that point on , Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week , sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode . The Mavericks were poker players from Texas who traveled all over the American Old West and on Mississippi riverboats , constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another , usually involving money , women , or both . They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma . More often than not , their consciences trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intrinsically ethical .   When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute , Roger Moore was added to the cast as their cousin Beau Maverick . Robert Colbert appeared later in the fourth season as a third Maverick brother , Brent Maverick . No more than two of the series leads ever appeared together in the same episode , and usually only one .   Budd Boetticher directed several of the early episodes of the first season and Robert Altman wrote and directed one in the fourth season .   The show was part of the Warner Bros. array of Westerns , which included Cheyenne , Colt .45 , Lawman , Bronco , The Alaskans , and Sugarfoot .