Seven Things to Know About "The Fugitive"

1. According to Mel Proctor's The Official Fan's Guide to The Fugitive, David Janssen's "salary" was 20% of the show's earnings plus $10,000 per week. He also owned 20% of the show. Needless to say, The Fugitive made Janssen a multimillionaire.

2. Stanford Whitman, who wrote the pilot episode "Fear in a Desert City," came up with the name of Kimble's "relentless pursuer" Philip Gerard. The police lieutenant's name was an homage to Inspector Javert from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Roy Huggins, who created The Fugitive, intended the series to be a modern day version of Hugo's novel.

Stafford resident Phil Gerard.

3. Kimble returned to Stafford, Indiana--the site of Helen Kimble's murder and Lieutenant Gerard's home--on at least three occasions. In "Home Is the Hunted," Richard visits his ailing father, Dr. John Kimble (Robert Keith), brother Ray (Andrew Prine), and sister Donna (Jacqueline Scott). Donna (always played by Scott) appeared in a total of five episodes. Other episodes set in Stafford include "The Survivors" (Kimble confronts Helen's family) and "The Judgment" (the two-part series conclusion). Originally, Stafford was a town in Wisconsin and there are references to that in some of the early episodes. When the writers learned that Wisconsin did not have a death penalty, Stafford's location was changed to Indiana, which has capital punishment.

4. The Fugitive cracked the Top Ten in the Nielsen ratings only once during its four seasons. It finished its second season at No. 5. In all, 120 episodes were broadcast, with only the final season in color.

5. Richard Kimble held many short-term jobs during his four years of running, with the most common ones being truck/bus driver, bartender, and cook. Still, he found work where he could get it in places such as: a department store, dog kennel, health resort, orphanage, lemon orchard, carnival, horse farm, hotel, and liquor store. He also worked in the medical field in a handful of episodes--but not as a physician, of course.

6. The train crash, featured in the opening of each episode during the first season, was lifted from a French film. If you look carefully in the still below, you can make out the letters "MIN DE FER" on the side of one boxcar. "Chemin de Fer" is French for "railroad." In Proctor's book, Barry Morse reveals that his seven-year-old daughter noticed it wasn't an American train. No one else took note, though, and the producers never changed the footage (though only stills were shown from the crash after season one).

7. Richard Kimble used over 100 aliases on The Fugitive, from Pete Allen to Steve Younger. The ones used the most frequently were Frank, Pete, Tom (or Thomas), Paul, Steve, and Ben. Questionably, he used his real first name on a couple of occasions.