How much do you think Paladin's rent was at the Hotel Carlton?

Even by 1950s standards, $12,000-$15,000 was a fairly nice income. In those days people bought houses for that much. In 1957, $12,000 was $97,560.98 in today's money, while $15,000 was equivalent to $121,951.22 in today's money. In 1875, $12,000 would be $250,000 today and $15,000 would be $312,500. Paladin was quite comfortable, but he enjoyed the good things in life such as bottles of Dom Perignon, house seats at the opera, and his penchant for poker. I think the poker cut into whatever investments he may have had.

San Francisco's Hotel Carlton was built in 1927. So it cannot be the same one that housed Paladin. According to the introduction to the radio version of Have Gun Will Travel, Paladin's heyday was 1875. ("San Francisco. 1875. The Carlton Hotel. Headquarters of a man called Paladin") On the radio, Paladin was played by John Dehner. I listened to the radio show each week on Armed Forces Radio in Tokyo in the early 1970s. That radio network featured a lot of radio shows from the late 1940s and early 1950s.

WOW, ZevII! Where did you get that information? It seems inconceivable that anyone would pay $125 for one night in 1875, even in Buckingham Palace, but I'm sure the tab at the Hotel Carlton was a hefty one. Even at a long-term rate that was one-fourth of the nightly rate, Paladin would be doing one $1,000 gig a month just to pay the rent!


"I'm only in Show Biz by injection"

I live outside NYC. Occasionally there are stories on the news of people who celebrate their golden wedding anniversary at a luxury hotel , such as The Plaza or the Waldorf Astoria. The hotel will charge the same rate as fifty years ago. It is usually something like $19 per night.

Living in a hotel full time was not unusual. Cole Porter, General Douglas MacArthur and FranK Sinatra lived at the Waldorf Towers. Jackie Gleason lived at the hotel that is mentioned at the end of "The Honeymooners. I believe that he later lived in the hotel in Miami beach where he did his 1960's variety show.

George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the NY Yankees live in a Manhattan hotel, I heard that he ws paying about 25,000 a month.

Howard Hughes lived in Hotel rooms in the last years of his life.

The U.S ambassador the the United Nations rents a triplex suite at the Waldorf towers. When I was in college in the 1980's, I remember reading that it was about 21,000 dollars a month.The taxpayers have been paying for that suite all these years.

Today many people can buy condos in the hotels and get maid service. I am guessing that there were no condos back in 1875.

UberGeek, Paladin didn't pay HeyBoy and HeyGirl directly. The Carlton paid their regular salary as employees. What's.likely is that Paladin kept them on retainer. Say he paid them each an additional $25-30/week, that would easily double or triple their salary. Then when they performed a special service he tipped them heavily for the additional assistance, sometimes with a $10 or $20 gold piece. Gold was worth more than paper money, so bonus there.

Palladian was generosity itself. For a patron like that one goes above and beyond the call of duty at all time.

I once.calculated that Paladin performed.an unrealistic minimum of eight to ten paying $10K jobs/year. It's unrealistic because he rarely takes the train (3X over six years) and travel time would prevent him arriving before situations resolved on their own.

The reason for the travel time problem is that HGWT was originally meant to be contemporary. Paladin was originally meant to be a jet set playboy living in New York City. When the series was pitched the network was looking for another western so it was changed to be set a century earlier. Everything worked except the travel timing. Most folks didn't even notice it.





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