Marshal Dillon kept order on Gunsmoke for 20 years

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This article was published 04/06/2011 (5554 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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.

The actor died in his sleep at his home in Brentwood, Calif., according to his business manager, Ginny Fazer.

Arness’s official website posted a letter from Arness on Friday that he wrote with the intention that it be posted posthumously: “I had a wonderful life and was blessed with some many loving people and great friends,” he said.

“I wanted to take this time to thank all of you for the many years of being a fan of Gunsmoke, The Thing, How the West Was Won and all the other fun projects I was lucky enough to have been allowed to be a part of. I had the privilege of working with so many great actors over the years.”

As U.S. Marshal Dillon in the 1955-75 CBS series, Arness created an indelible portrait of a quiet, heroic man with an unbending dedication to justice and the town he protected.

The wealth and fame Arness gained from Gunsmoke could not protect him from tragedy in his personal life: His daughter and his former wife, Virginia, both died of drug overdoses.

Arness, a quiet, intensely private man who preferred the outdoor life to Hollywood’s party scene, rarely gave interviews and refused to discuss the tragedies.

“He’s big, impressive and virile,” co-star Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) once said of Arness, adding, “I’ve worked with him for 16 years, but I don’t really know him.”

The actor was 32 when friend John Wayne declined the lead role in Gunsmoke and recommended Arness instead. Afraid of being typecast, Arness initially rejected it.

“Go ahead and take it, Jim,” Wayne urged him. “You’re too big for pictures. Guys like Gregory Peck and I don’t want a big lug like you towering over us. Make your mark in television.”

Gunsmoke went on to become the longest-running dramatic series in network history until NBC’s Law & Order tied in 2010. Arness’s 20-year prime-time run as the marshal was tied only in recent times, by Kelsey Grammer’s 20 years as Frasier Crane from 1984 to 2004 on Cheers and then on Frasier.

Born James Aurness in Minneapolis (he dropped the “u” for show business reasons), he and brother Peter enjoyed a “real Huckleberry Finn existence,” Arness once recalled.

Peter, who changed his last name to Graves, went on to star in the TV series Mission Impossible.

A self-described drifter, Arness left home at age 18, hopping freight trains and Caribbean-bound freighters. He entered Beloit College , but was drafted into the army in his 1942-43 freshman year. Wounded in the leg during the 1944 invasion at Anzio, Italy, Arness was hospitalized for a year and left with a slight limp. He returned to Minneapolis to work as an announcer and in small theatre roles.

He moved to Hollywood in 1946 at a friend’s suggestion. After a slow start a role in MGM’s Battleground (1949) was a career turning point. Parts in more than 20 films followed, including The Thing, Hellgate and Hondo with Wayne. Then came Gunsmoke, which proved a durable hit and a multimillion-dollar boon for Arness, who owned part of the series.

— The Associated Press