Gaylyn Studlar is David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Film & Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Precocious Charms: Stars Performing Girlhood in Classical Hollywood Cinema among other books on film as well as television. She is currently working on Erotic Labor: Sex, Class, and Stardom in pre-Code Hollywood.
"Have Gun—Will Travel" defined itself by its difference, with co-creator Sam Role supposedly worrying about its reception: “Who’s going to buy this radical?”
Her physical vitality seemed to embody hope for the future while her cheerful sweetness salved fears associated with children and families in a decade when 25 percent of American men were out of work, and husbands and fathers who could not cope with the strain of unemployment and failure sometimes just walked away.