For all of us who were raised in the 60s, Marshall Dillon was the ultimate "good guy" on "Gunsmoke".....one of the westerns that kept violence to a minimum. One of the first heros of the infant TV age......

R.I.P. James....I loved watching you every week.....

Quote:

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James Arness, the 6-foot-6 actor who towered over the television landscape for two decades as righteous Dodge City lawman Matt Dillon in “Gunsmoke,” died Friday. He was 88.

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http://xfinitytv.comcast.net/blogs/2011/celebrity-deaths/james-arness-of-gunsmoke-fame-dies-at-88/?cmpid=FCST_tvnews

...better known as Peter Graves of course and "What is our vector, Victor?"



Dun Dun duh duh doo doo do. . .

fwiw.... Mr. Arness occasionally spent a weekend at a small resort on the Kings River near my hometown of Kingsburg, 20 mi. so. of Fresno. One day we were traveling on the overpass of hwy 99 and "Misstur Dhillon" was turning down onto 99 in a Big Ol' White Cadillac....the early 60s variety with them big fins!!! I was impressed!!
Staple of TV watching for lot of guys like my WW2 vet Dad. Me too, I reckon.
fwiw/2.... small statue of his sidekick "Festus" guards Polasky Ave. in downtown Clovis....actor was longtime area resident.

I got his autograph circa 1959-60 at a Supermarket event by Oakland Tech High School when I was a young kid. He was standing in a wagon with bales of hay. Sh*t I'm old.

bearister;516226 said:

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I got his autograph circa 1959-60 at a Supermarket event by Oakland Tech High School when was a young kid. He was standing in a wagon with bales of hay. Sh*t I'm old.

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The Safeway? That plaza? What the heck was that area like back then. (Just curious because I'm frequently in that area.)

okaydo;516242 said:

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The Safeway? That plaza? What the heck was that area like back then. (Just curious because I'm frequently in that area.)

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I haven't driven by there lately. If memory serves, the site of the supermarket(and it had a weird name) was across the side street from Tech (not across Broadway). I think there is an office building on the lot now (it was a State building; Kaiser may rent it now). And there was a Chris' Hot Dogs across Broadway which was the Top Dog of its day. I was also thinking how you could have put together a pretty good Western TV star hoop pick up team: Arness at 6'6", and Fess Parker and Chuck Connors (actually played for the Celtics) at just over 6'5". The actors today are pipsqueaks compared to those guys--they wouldn't even fit in the same frame with them. Fess and Arness lived long lives for real tall guys--you don't see many tall guys in their late 80's.

I believe he was also in the original of "The Thing"

majorursa;516462 said:

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I believe he was also in the original of "The Thing"

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He was the thing from another world. Great film. It had one of those great Spielbergian moments when they spread out on the ice to learn the shape of the crashed craft. Arness was big enough to be truly menacing.

His son, Rolf Arness was a world champion surfer way back in the day.

DesertBear;516485 said:

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He was the thing from another world. Great film. It had one of those great Spielbergian moments when they spread out on the ice to learn the shape of the crashed craft. Arness was big enough to be truly menacing.

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I remember seeing The Thing when I was about 5 in the ealy 60s. It was the scariest movie I'd seen for the longest time until maybe the Exorcist years later.

Intelligently written, well cast with lots of quirky characters and some of the baddest ass villains ever. Arness may have been a one-note actor in the mold of his mentor John Wayne, but he managed to carry it off. I would rate "The Thing" right behind "Psycho" for developing tension and shock value.