Mason Alan Dinehart

Mason Alan Dinehart (born April 30, 1936), also known as Mason Alan Dinehart III, Alan Dinehart III, or Mase Dinehart, is an American business consultant and retired actor best known for his role as a youthful Bat Masterson in thirty-four episodes between 1955 and 1959 of the ABC/Desilu television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian in the title role of the frontier marshal Wyatt Earp.

The Hollywood-born Dinehart was the only son of the actor Alan Dinehart and Dinehart's second wife, actress journalist, casting director and songwriter Mozelle Britton.[2] In 1936, he legally changed his name to Mason Alan Dinehart, the same name as his father, so that his younger son from the second marriage could be known as Mason Alan Dinehart III. This name change created confusion because the senior Dinehart's first son from his first marriage was already Alan Dinehart Jr. (1918–1992),[3] the former animation and voice director for Hanna-Barbera.[4]

Mason Alan Dinehart has been married four times and has seven surviving children. A son, Scott Dinehart, died in 2010 of an emergency hip operation.[citation needed] He has two children each from his first and second marriages to Evelyn Myers (1954–1958) and Barbara Blakely (1958–1965), respectively. In 1982, he married for the fourth time; he and the former Miranda Gazal have four children. Dinehart played the youthful Bat Masterson who is the understudy of Wyatt Earp in learning the proper techniques of frontier law enforcement. Earp rarely calls him "Bat" but "Mr. Masterson" to teach the young man maturity. In a 1956 episode "Bat Masterson Again," Earp shows young Masterson on the proper use of a pistol. During this time Masterson was elected sheriff of Ford County, Kansas, which includes the county seat of Dodge City. Bill Tilghman had been denied the right to run for sheriff again. Earp as an appointed town marshal works with an elected sheriff, and their differences in jurisdiction do not cause any problems. Bat's brother, Ed Masterson, played by Brad Johnson, formerly the deputy sheriff on the Annie Oakley television series, is shot in an ambush by drunken cowboys, and Masterson settles the score. When Earp finally comes to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, he lacks the working relationship with Sheriff Johnny Behan that he had in Kansas with Bat Masterson.