The citizens of San Francisco are shocked by the news that Robert Ironside – the hard-nosed, tough-talking Chief of Detectives for the San Francisco Police Department – has been shot by a hitman while on holiday at his friend the Police Commissioner’s rural retreat.
Ironside survives the murder attempt, but the bullet has damaged his spine, leaving him paralysed from the waist down.
Confined to a wheelchair and unable to return to his old job, Ironside gets permission to continue investigating criminal cases as a civilian consultant (although he is often referred to as ‘Chief’ throughout the show) and sets up his operations base in a converted attic of SFPD headquarters.
With the assistance of two former protégées, Detective Sergeant Ed Brown (Don Galloway) and the beautiful Officer Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson), Ironside sets out to solve his first case as a civilian by finding the people responsible for the attempt on his life.
The final member of his team is newly-hired driver cum bodyguard, Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell) – a young man headed for the wrong side of the law until the Chief encouraged him to make a better life for himself.
The third season delivered a string of “very special episodes” in which Ironside finds himself in situations of jeopardy, kidnapped as a hostage in a prison break, and appointed as head of security for a political delegation in Red China.
Barbara Anderson left the show at the end of the 1970-71 season and was replaced by Elizabeth Baur as Policewoman Fran Belding.
Ironside was a triumphant return to television for Raymond Burr, following his long-running series Perry Mason.
The NBC series ran for eight years. It was transmitted in the UK as A Man Called Ironside.
Chief Robert T. Ironside
Raymond Burr
Officer Eve Whitfield
Barbara Anderson
Det Sgt Ed Brown
Don Galloway
Mark Sanger
Don Mitchell
Fran Belding
Elizabeth Baur
Commissioner Randall
Gene Lyons
Lt. Carl Reese
Johnny Seven
Diana Sanger
Joan Pringle
