Career
In eight episodes of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Alaniz appeared with Rodd Redwing in the part of "Mr. Brother", who is killed the 1958 episode "One" by the Dry Gulch Gang. Several episodes of the series are spent as Marshal Earp hunts down the gang and makes sure that all four members are tried, and as it resulted, hanged.
Alaniz was also cast in two other episodes of the series, as Esteban Morango in "The Schoolteacher" (1958) and as Joe Riva in "Death for a Stolen Horse" (1959).
Among his early television roles were four episodes of the syndicated western series, The Adventures of Kit Carson, starring Bill Williams. In the premiere episode on August 11, 1951 entitled "California Outlaws", Alaniz was cast as Joaquin Murrieta.
Alaniz was cast five times on The High Chaparral, four times on Bonanza, three times on Gunsmoke, and twice each on 26 Men, Border Patrol, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Tales of Wells Fargo, Rawhide, The Wild Wild West, The Fugitive, and The Loretta Young Show. In the episode "The Perfect Circle" (1959) of the Columbia Broadcasting System crime drama Tightrope, starring Mike Connors, Alaniz was cast as a detective.
In 1972, in one of Alaniz"s last television roles, he played a doctor in the episode "Broker Mirror" of the Columbia Broadcasting System series Mannix, also starring Mike Connors.
Alaniz played Manuel Ortega, who ambushes a stagecoach carrying a man accused of murdering Ortega"s sister, in the 1960 episode, "Day of Vengeance" of the National Broadcasting Company western series, Laramie, starring John Smith and Robert Fuller. In 1962, he was cast in two crime drama television series, as Colonel Luna in the episode "Flight from Escondido" of the American Broadcasting Company/World Bank detective series, 77 Sunset Strip, starring Efrem Zimbalist, Junior., and as Rafael Bencosme in "Ramon" on National Broadcasting Company"s 87th Precinct. He is also remembered for the part of Felipe in the 1953 film Conquest of Cochise, with John Hodiak as the Apache chief Cochise, and as Sotero in The Magnificent Seven (1960).
Alaniz died at his home in California on March 9, 2015 at the age of 95.
