I love to see an actor who is grateful and proud of the show/character that made him/her famous. I hate it when actors lament that the show " made it hard for casting directors to see me as other characters "....well, if it weren't for that role, you wouldn't even be known to casting directors for ANYTHING ! Another actor who had this great attitude, was Clayton Moore, he said he was just happy being The Lone Ranger, he didn't care if he ever played anything else...yay for James and Clayton !
Beautiful interview with a gracious gentleman. Mr. Arness was right when he said the audience wanted to see the Gunsmoke family every Saturday night. I still watch on MeT.V.
I grew up in the 50s and 60s and never missed an episode. What a great guy just a plain down to earth regular sort of guy I would love to sit down and talk to him for a couple hours outstanding man. God bless you, James.
If they got brand new actors, good actors, they could put the show back on with the exact same set and it would stay number one for 20 more years. Providing of course they didn’t let the woke people ruin the writing.
This was a great interview!! We watch Gunsmoke reruns every night! Never get tired of them. A great show, with great characters, and no bad language or excessive violence. A breath of fresh air in these times. Love hearing about Jim's personal experiences. ❤
Boy did that turn out to be a major long-running success. I'll bet James Arness had no idea Gunsmoke would turn out to be the keystone of his acting career, running for 20 years followed by several TV movies. And with a personal introduction from John Wayne. I hope James' parents lived to see how well their boy did. He seems to be a very likable man.
I loved it all, but especially at the end of a show when festus & doc walked away arguing with each other it was so funny, they knew how to inject funny & serious
I remember Gunsmoke when it first came to television in 1955. Watching it on Saturday night became a family ritual. I'm surprised Arness didn't mention William Conrad being the radio actor casted for Matt Dillon when he mentioned the radio production.
I can and DO watch westerns from this time period over, and over, and over again and never grow tired of them!!! Today there isnt a single network television show that Ive watched in 15 years!!!!
My two biggest heroes, who were actors, are #1 John Wayne, and a very close #2 was James Arness. I was born in the early 80's, and have lived all my life deep out in the woods of Tennessee, on the same 1 acre of land. So we had no access to cable tv when I was a young kid. All we had was a antenna, and 4 fuzzy tv channels, that came from way out of Memphis. When I was 15 or 16, in the late 90's, we finally got a Primestar dish. Which later became Direct TV. That was when I became exposed to all the old Western movies, and TV shows. It was the greatest thing ever. Before that, the only Westerns I had ever seen, were the ones that would come on PBS sometimes after church, on Sunday afternoons. My Papaw and myself, would always sit and watch them together, on their big old 25" console TV. Most of the time, there would be so much static, that you could barely make out who the actors were. So the actors with iconic voices, always stood out to me. After he died in 1998, watching these old shows and movies, made me feel like he was still here watching them with me. So Westerns have always held a special place in my heart because of that. Papaw was a WWII veteran, and his favorite actor was John Wayne. Since Papaw was my real life hero, Duke automatically became my favorite actor too. I think that if every kid today, had been brought up on these old Westerns, the world would have a whole lot more kids with morals. Because the old Westerns always taught valuable life lessons. If modern kids watched them, the world a much better place to live today.
James Arness was like Lou Gehrig, he was the IRON MAN of the Western. How he completed 20 years of Gunsmoke on tv is nothing short of remarkable, no one will ever top this record. Our family watched it when I was a kid, and we still watch as an adult. Gunsmoke will always be shown on t.v. as long as t.v. is around, so James Arness and the gang will be around forever
One of the best western actors ever loved gunsmoke how the west was won he did amazing with the gunsmoke movies and the remake of red river and awesome in John Wayne’s big Jim McClain island in the sky hondo and the sea chase rest in peace James arness
Give me the great old shows! When Hollywood was still in the entertainment business unlike today where its ALL about pushing the woke narrative down our collective throats.
The 30 minute B&W episodes are by far my favorites. Then the hour B&W episodes with Chester. The other B&W hour episodes are OK but can drag a bit and sometimes focus more on the guest stars character instead of the Gunsmoke crew. The color episodes I rarely watch. Just cant get into Festus, Quint, Thad, and Newly. Nothing against the actors themselves.
They one being gracious is James not wayne. Movie actors would never do TV in those days because they thought it was a step down. So he gave it to James not to be kind but because he would not be caught dead doing tv.
The real reason why Gunsmoke was so successful is simple. Yes, it had good stories, but people LOVED the four core characters, and viewers absolutely adored the relationship between Matt and Miss Kitty.
