When “Gunsmoke” was premiered on CBS In 1955, the television series already had a fan due to its success as a radio show. However, this was a small problem, since the radio line-up would not go on to live action. The biggest challenge? Sale of spectators in a version of US marshal Matt Dillon, which did not have the distinctive, sonorous voice of William Conrad.
James Arness was hardly a neophyte when he stepped in front of the camera to play Dillon. He had published in numerous big screen westerns and had played the title monster in Christian Nyby’s “The Thing from Another World” (which would be later newly made by John Carpenter as “the thing”). At 6’7 “he was a command -leading figure, although not exactly warm or charismatic. CBS thought Arness got used to it, and it was not exactly patient enough to wait for it to grow on the spectators.
How do you sell an actor who doesn’t sell immediately? If you do not connect it to a variety show or present his character via an existing series, you are pretty well secured in a corner. So the network threw a hail of Mary and hit his buddy and the former co-star John Wayne. Surprisingly, the television-averse Wayne liked his buddy a solid.
John Wayne gave Gunsmoke his western consent seal
When the television viewers turned into CBS for the first episode of “Gunsmoke”, they were not spoiled with their regular opening title song. No, they were Stark on the biggest film star in Hollywood, which was set for the quality of the new western series of the network. “Good evening,” he said. “My name is Wayne. Some of them may have seen me before. I hope so.”
Wayne continued to remind the spectators (unnecessarily) that he had made a name for himself in Western and that he visited her living room to spread the “Gunsmoke” Gospel. “No, I’m not there,” he joked. Then he continued with the Schilling:
“I wish I would be, although it is the best way of his thing. I hope you will agree. It’s honest, it is grown up, it is realistic. When I heard about the show ‘Gunsmoke’ for the first time, I knew that there was only one man to play: James Arness. I had to get used to myself.
Arness observed somewhere in Hollywood and the occupation of “Gunsmoke” this introduction with pine, which were firmly planted on the floor. It was assumed that Arness was called to the Duke, but this was not the case at all. Arness had no idea what would come and could not have been flattered. “It was absolutely wonderful,” he once said in an interview with the archive of American television.
How good was Wayne’s word? CBS ultimately kept “Gunsmoke” in the air for 20 yearsAnd helps to start the careers of people like Burt Reynolds and Dennis Weaver. It was never the most striking show, but it was always satisfied for spectators who loved meat-and-potatoes western. Arness played Matt Dillon for 635 and, in addition to the leading role in the failed cop series “McClain’s Law” in the early 1980s, for the rest of his career in the Western.
