This was written by Peter Phelps, the Australian actor who played 'The Kangaroo Kid' in "The Exchange, Pts. 1 & 2" about his time on The Young Riders. His comments are different to any others I've seen about the show, but in the interests of free speech, I include it as a legitimate viewpoint.
Because this was a western, we being red-blooded, macho American/Australian lads, there were naturally the ubiquitous action scenes; stunts like firing guns at each other, taking bullets into our bods, punch-ups, bareback leaps on to trusty steads [sic ] etc. I had one sequence where I was to brawl with a wanted murderer, eventually coming off second-best with a few slugs to my shoulder. As is my way of working I will only use a stunt double if absolutely necessary. I am turned off immediately by seeing a different person perform a stunt that simply takes a couple of hours of your time with a professional stunt coordinator in order to make a shot look good.
Even with all the care taken to secure this shot, nerves and time limitations can lead to accidents. After several rehearsals of a shot where the bad guy feigns death as a result of my dead-eye shooting (all those rabbits and 'roos blasted to buggery on that distant farm?), we decided to shoot the setup. The different between the take and the rehearsal was that in the rehearsals the other actor had his eyes open, checking carefully the required distance by which to miss my actor's glass jaw.
With his hours of daylight slipping away the director hurried the scene along and called for a take after only a couple of roughly choreographed stunts of our bust-up. A few seconds after the magic word 'action' was given by our sun-watching director, my 'dead' companion swung a beautiful closed-eyed right hook that Jeff Fenech [a famous Australian boxer] would have been proud of. As I felt my bottom teeth poke out of my now-flapping lip, a sudden surge of realism hit me and I yelled at the camera operator to keep rolling on our fight. I knew the other actor's incredulous look and expressions of 'Oh F**k!' and 'S**t!' could be edited out, so I told him to keep coming at me. What we got was a great-looking fight scene, and a standing ovation from an appreciative and caring crew. I got a week off with five stitches in my lip and a seal of approval from the boys. I was in the club. I was blooded.
On the second-last day of my stay in Arizona, just as I was eyeing a neat little four-wheel drive Ford Bronco in a Tucson car dealer's, word came down (across) from LA that the main producer of 'The Young Riders', MGM TV was going broke and no new cast would be added to the series, if in fact it went ahead at all. Indeed one of the principal actors was fired, along with the champion of my cause, Jonas, the producer who had hired me initially.
Farewell, house and garden. Back to the Dream Factory and the wonderful world of ambitions.
My first thoughts were that maybe the story became twisted somehow once again like the 'Baywatch' fiasco, and inadvertently I had fired a round of live ammo into the crew and killed seven workers. Whoops! Another black ban on the Aussie.
My legacy from this western adventure is a permanent lump of scar tissue on my inside lip, and a great rhinestone belt buckle from the ousted producer with the inscription 'The Young Riders - 1991-92'. I would have preferred a cottage on the coast. But I'm pretty sure I can get a good game of pool whenever I breeze through Tucson.
The swiftness and coldness of this action didn't surprise me. Every day in Hollywood, similar stories of firings and wheelings and dealings are de rigueur. An old room-mate of mine was recently cast as the lead in a series. I had known the director of this show for a while and when I saw him at a party, I asked if he looked forward to working with my friend. Regrettably, the director informed me, the producer's wife had seen the ultimate screen test of my buddy) which he spent every minute of every day agonising over and polishing for more than a month), and didn't like his face. End of story. End of my mate's job.
More coming soon.
From: Sex Without Madonna, Peter Phelps, pp. 92-94