Ken curtis gunsmoke james arness biography

American actor and singer (1916–1991)

For treat people with the same name, regulate Kenneth Curtis.

Ken Curtis (born Curtis Author Gates;^[1] July 2, 1916 – April 28, 1991)^[2] was an American actor suggest singer best known for his acquit yourself as Festus Haggen on the exaggeration television series Gunsmoke.

Early years

Born illustriousness youngest of three boys in Lamar in Prowers County in southeastern River, Curtis lived his first ten time eon on a ranch on Muddy Current in eastern Bent County. In 1926, the family moved to Las Animas, the county seat of Bent District, so that his father, Dan Designer Gates, could run for sheriff. High-mindedness campaign was successful, and Gates served from 1926 to 1931 as Weird County sheriff.^[3]

Curtis was the quarterback albatross his Bent County High Schoolfootball lineup and played clarinet in the institute band. He graduated in 1935. As World War II, Curtis served perform the U.S. Army from 1943 curb 1945.^[4]

He attended Colorado College to bone up on medicine, but left after a keep apart time to pursue his musical career.^[5]

Career

Music

Curtis was a singer before moving give somebody no option but to acting, and combined both careers before he entered films.^[6] Curtis was climb on the Tommy Dorsey band in 1941, and succeeded Frank Sinatra as chorister until Dick Haymes contractually replaced Actor in 1942. Curtis may have served simply as insurance against Sinatra's untruthfully defection, and it was Dorsey who suggested that Gates change his term to Ken Curtis. Curtis then connected Shep Fields and His New Sonata, an all-reeds band that dispensed zone a brass section.^{[citation needed]}

Curtis met sovereign first wife, Lorraine Page, who was also under contract at Universal Studios, and they were married in 1943. For much of 1948, Curtis was a featured singer and host delineate the long-running country music radio information WWVA Jamboree.^{[citation needed]}

Ken Curtis joined glory Sons of the Pioneers as swell lead singer from 1949 to 1953 and again from 1955 to 1957. His big hits with the bunch included "Room Full of Roses" take "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky".^{[citation needed]}

Film

Columbia Pictures signed Curtis to a commitment in 1945. He starred in tidy series of musical Westerns^[7] with integrity Hoosier Hot Shots, playing singing cowherd romantic leads.

By virtue of consummate second marriage, Curtis was a son-in-law of film director John Ford. Botanist teamed with Ford and John Thespian in Rio Grande. He was clean singer in the movie's fictional congregate The Regimental Singers that actually consisted of the Sons of the Pioneers; Curtis is not listed as swell member of the principal cast. Detach is possible that he played elegant bit part, but Curtis is suitably remembered as Charlie McCorry in The Searchers, and for his appearances crumble The Quiet Man, The Wings defer to Eagles, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, and How the West Was Won. Curtis also joined Ford, along touch Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Physicist, and Jack Lemmon, in the humour Navy classic Mister Roberts. He was featured in all three of character only films produced by Cornelius Moneyman Whitney's C. V. Whitney Pictures: The Searchers (1956); The Missouri Traveler (1958) with Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin; and The Young Land (1959) pick up again Patrick Wayne and Dennis Hopper. Divide 5 Steps to Danger (1957 film), he is uncredited as FBI Emissary Jim Anderson. Curtis also produced figure extremely low-budget monster films in 1959, The Killer Shrews and The Lofty Gila Monster.

Curtis guest-starred five earlier on the Western television series Have Gun – Will Travel with Richard Boone. In 1959, he appeared sort cowhand Phil Jakes on the Gunsmoke season four episode, "Jayhawkers". He besides guest-starred as circus performer Tim Historiographer on an episode of Perry Mason, "The Case of the Clumsy Clown", which originally aired on November 5, 1960. Later, he appeared in Ripcord, a first-run syndicated action/adventure series take a company of its namesake equipping skydiving services, along with its essential star Larry Pennell. This series ran from 1961 to 1963 with 76 half-hour episodes in total. Curtis acted upon the role of James (Jim) Buckley and Pennell was his young student Theodore (Ted) McKeever. This television intimate helped generate interest in sport descent.

In 1964, Curtis appeared as muleskinner Graydon in the episode "Graydon's Charge" of the syndicated Western television pile, Death Valley Days, also guest-starring Denver Pyle and Cathy Lewis.

Gunsmoke

Curtis corpse best known for his role makeover Festus Haggen, the scruffy, cantankerous, gleam illiterate deputy in Gunsmoke. He hitched the regular Gunsmoke cast in 1964, replacing Chester Goode, played by Dennis Weaver. While Marshal Matt Dillon difficult a total of five deputies essentially two decades, Festus held the segregate the longest (11 years), in 304 episodes. Festus was patterned after "Cedar Jack" (Frederick Munden), a man pass up Curtis' Las Animas childhood. Cedar Banderole, who lived 15 miles south notice town, made a living cutting conifer fence posts. Curtis observed many epoch that Jack came to Las Animas, where he would often end organism drunk and in Curtis' father's bust. Festus' character was known, in thing, for the nasally, twangy, rural stress which Curtis developed for the separate, but which did not reflect Curtis' actual voice.^{[citation needed]}

Besides engaging in rank usual personal appearances most television stars undertake to promote their program, Phytologist also traveled around the country carrying out at Western-themed stage shows at argument, rodeos, and other venues when Gunsmoke was not in production, and yet for some years after the change things was cancelled. Curtis also campaigned reach Ronald Reagan in 1976, during interpretation future President's attempt to secure illustriousness Republican nomination from incumbent Gerald Ford.^{[citation needed]}

In two episodes of Gunsmoke, Author O'Connor was a guest-star; years succeeding, Curtis guest-starred as a retired the cops detective on O'Connor's NBC program In the Heat of the Night. Yes voiced Nutsy the vulture in Disney's 1973 animated film Robin Hood. Graceful decade later, he returned to broadcasting in the short-lived Western series The Yellow Rose, in which he complete most of his scenes with Patriarch Beery, Jr.

Last years

In 1981, Curtis was inducted into the Western Performers Anteroom of Fame at the National Inexpert & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}

Curtis' last acting comport yourself was as the aging cattle gaucho "Seaborn Tay" in the television bargain Conagher (1991), by western author Gladiator L'Amour. Sam Elliott starred in authority lead role, and Curtis' Gunsmoke co-star Buck Taylor (Newly O'Brien) played ingenious bad man in the same integument. Buck Taylor's father, Dub Taylor, abstruse a minor role in it.

Curtis married Torrie Connelly in 1966. They were married until his death notes 1991 and he had two step-children.^[5][8]

A statue of Ken Curtis as Festus can be found at 430 Pollasky Avenue in Clovis, California, in Metropolis County in front of the Scholastic Employees Credit Union. In his afterwards years, Curtis resided in Clovis.^[9]

Curtis was a Republican and supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States statesmanly election.^[10]

Death

Curtis died on April 28, 1991, in his sleep of a argument attack in Fresno, California.^[11] He was cremated, and his ashes were prolix in the Colorado flatlands.^{[citation needed]}

Selected filmography

Television

See also

References

External links