Soldiers of Fortune is a 1955 syndicated half hour American television adventure series. It starred John Russell as Tim Kelly and Chick Chandler as his sidekick Toubo Smith who were international adventurers. Each episode would take place in a different country. Many of the film crew had worked at Republic Pictures studios with the show filmed on Republic's backlot then used by television's Revue Productions. The show was constantly rerun on American television into the 1960s. The original run was from January 10, 1955 to March 10, 1957.
The show was sponsored for two years by 7 Up soft drink. One year after Soldiers of Fortune was cancelled, John Russell went on to star as Marshal Dan Troup in the successful ABC/Warner Brothers western series Lawman. This description was copied from Wikipedia. Russell was in chess game with a Latin American dictator. He had help from a refugee European doctor. He won the game because the doctor was also 'helping' the dictator.
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (2002) attempted to build on everything from the first game, with more detail to the gore system, a longer game, more weapons (but with the crazier ones removed) and a very advanced graphics engine for its time. Some say further focus on realism makes the gore. In a world where there are no obvious 'bad guys', where governments engage in secret wars and illegal activities that threaten the security of every individual and nation on the planet, a group of highly trained covert military operatives have just joined forces to become Soldier of Fortune, Inc., an elite crime fighting unit.
For a 10 yr old, the was a way cool plot twist. I agree with the previous poster that the series was an example of the 'White man's burden'. Can't believe that it only ran a year. It was a period piece in a lull for mercenaries. Then again, with the Congo in 1960, the concept of mercenaries was revived and it was not an American dominated area. Probably would have done better if they were CIA.