You're Right! The show was extremely popular for two seasons until Lucas got a girlfriend, sweet little Miss Milly (Joan Taylor) in the third season. Someone finally got between him and that gun. The ratings fell, so the next season Lucas dumped the girlfriend and got a female adversary instead. Patricia Blair joined the cast as Lou Mallory, she ran the hotel in town and had more practical needs for a man with a big self-cocking rifle for hire. In the early Seventies, when hard-line USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev made his historical visit to the United States, the White House staff asked their notoriously temperamental guest if there were any American stars or celebrities he would like to meet. He had only one request - Chuck Connors. 'The Rifleman' was one of the few American shows allowed on Russian television at that time because it was Breshnev's favorite.