When Have Gun – Will Travel premiered in 1957, television viewers already had plenty of Westerns to choose from. Still, Richard Boone’s sophisticated gunfighter Paladin stood apart. He lived comfortably at San Francisco’s Hotel Carlton, dressed well, enjoyed the finer things, and then traveled wherever danger called.
According to Remind, the CBS series ran for six seasons and 225 episodes before ending in 1963, and it ranked among television’s top four shows during each of its first four seasons. Nearly 70 years after Have Gun Will Travel first reached audiences, only one member of its small principal cast remains alive: Lisa Lu, who played Hey Girl.
Lisa Lu Is the Last Surviving Main Cast Member of Have Gun Will Travel
Lu first appeared on the Western before taking on the role that longtime viewers remember best. In the 1958 episode “Hey Boy’s Revenge,” she played Kim Li, the sister of Kam Tong’s Hey Boy. When Tong temporarily left the series during Season 4, Lu returned as Hey Girl, another Hotel Carlton employee who often delivered the messages that sent Paladin toward his next assignment.
Hey Girl did not appear in every episode, but Lu became a familiar presence during the 1960-61 season. At 98, she also carries a remarkable Hollywood legacy far beyond the series. Her career has lasted more than seven decades and includes appearances in The Mountain Road, The Last Emperor, The Joy Luck Club, and Crazy Rich Asians, as well as more recent television work in American Born Chinese and Death and Other Details. In 2025, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and became the oldest person ever to receive the honor.
The Western’s Legacy Stretched Far Beyond Paladin
Richard Boone, who played Paladin, died in 1981 at 63 from throat cancer complications. Kam Tong also became a key part of the show as Hey Boy. Behind the scenes, stuntman Hal Needham worked as Boone’s double before becoming Burt Reynolds’ longtime stuntman and later directing films such as Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. Their friendship helped inspire the dynamic between Cliff Booth and Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
That lasting influence helps explain why Have Gun Will Travel still holds a place in television history. The show combined Western action with a hero who seemed equally comfortable discussing culture in a hotel lobby or facing danger on the frontier. Today, Lisa Lu stands as the last living connection to its principal cast. For fans who grew up watching Paladin’s adventures, her extraordinary longevity offers a living link to one of television’s classic Western eras.
