Trivia: It was while attending Colorado College that American actor/singer Ken Curtis discovered his talent for writing music. After an artistic apprenticeship on the staff of the NBC radio network's music department in the early '30s, Curtis was hired as male vocalist for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, then went on to work for bandleader Shep Fields. Preferring country-western to swing, Curtis joined the Sons of the Pioneers singing group in the 1940s, and in this capacity appeared in several western films. Columbia Pictures felt that Curtis had star potential, and gave the singer his own series of westerns in 1945, but Ken seemed better suited to supporting roles. He worked a lot for director John Ford in the '40s and '50s, as both singer and actor, before earning starring status again on the 1961 TV adventure series Ripcord. That was the last we saw of the handsome, clean-shaven Ken Curtis; the Ken Curtis that most western fans are familiar with is the scraggly rustic deputy Festus Haggen on the long-running TV Western Gunsmoke. Ken was hired to replace Dennis Weaver (who'd played deputy Chester Good) in 1964, and remained with Gunsmoke until the series ended its 20-year run in 1975. After that, Ken Curtis retired to his spread in Fresno, California, stepping back into the spotlight on occasion for guest appearances at western-movie conventions.

Trivia: Craig Stevens abandoned all plans for a career in dentistry when he became involved in student productions at the University of Kansas. Trained at Pasadena Playhouse and Paramount's acting school, Stevens was signed to a stock Warner Bros. contract in 1941. He was well showcased as a soft-hearted gangster in At the Stroke of Twelve, a 1941 two-reel adaptation of Damon Runyon's The Old Doll's House, but his feature film roles were merely adequate at best. By 1950, Stevens was reduced to playing a standard mustachioed villain in the Bowery Boys epic Blues Busters. His saving turnaround came about when Stevens was cast in the title role of the 1958 Blake Edwards-produced TV private eye series Peter Gunn. Though obviously imitating Cary Grant in the early episodes of this three-season hit, Stevens eventually developed a hard-edged acting style all his own. He later re-created his TV role in the 1967 theatrical feature Gunn. Subsequent TV-series assignments for Stevens included the British-filmed weekly Man of the World (1962) and CBS' Mr. Broadway (1964). Craig Stevens was married to actress Alexis Smith (with whom he toured in such stage productions as Critic's Choice) from 1944 until her death in 1993.

Trivia: One of the most iconic action stars of all time, Kurt Russell (born March 17th, 1951) is among the few to make the successful transition from child star to successful adult actor. As a youth, Russell aspired to follow the footsteps of his father, Bing Russell, who, in addition to being a big league baseball player, was also an actor (he was perhaps best known for his role as the sheriff on the TV Western Bonanza). That his heroes Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris did the same thing only strengthened Russell's resolve to have both a baseball and acting career.He first broke into acting on television, starring in the series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters, and he made his film debut playing the boy who kicks Elvis in the 1963 Elvis Presley vehicle It Happened at the World's Fair. After signing a ten-year contract with Disney, Russell got his big break as a juvenile actor in 1966, starring opposite Fred MacMurray in Disney's live-action feature Follow Me Boys! His association with the studio lasted through 1975, and produced such comedic family movies as The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), The Barefoot Executive (1971), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975). The last film marked Russell's final collaboration with Disney, aside from his voicing the character of Copper in the studio's The Fox and the Hound (1981). Still an avid baseball enthusiast during those years, Russell nurtured his dreams of becoming a professional ball player until a shoulder injury permanently changed his plans.After ending his association with Disney, Russell disappeared from features for a few years. He appeared in a few television movies, most notably playing the title role in Elvis, John Carpenter's made-for-television biopic. His next role as a sleazy used car salesman in Robert Zemeckis' hilariously caustic Used Cars (1980) allowed him to counter his wholesome, all-American nice guy image, and prove that he was an actor of untapped range. Director Carpenter recognized this and cast Russell as ruthless mercenary Snake Plissken in his brooding sci-fi/action film Escape From New York (1981). The role would prove to be one of legendary status, and one that would cement Russell as a cult hero for generations to come. Carpenter also cast Russell as a scientist stranded in the Antarctic in his chilling 1982 remake of The Thing. Realizing that his characters were larger than life, Russell typically played them with a subtle tongue- in-cheek quality. He also used this comic intuition in comedies like 1987's Overboard, in which he starred alongside his long-time life-partner and mother of his child Golide Hawn.In 1983, Russell moved to serious drama, playing opposite Cher and Meryl Streep in Silkwood. The success of that film helped him break into a more mainstream arena, and he was later able to win praise for his dramatic work in such films as Swing Shift (1984), Tequila Sunrise (1988), and Winter People (1989). However, it is with his performances in action films that Russell remains most widely associated. He has appeared in a number of such films, all of disparate quality. Some of Russell's more memorable projects include Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Tango and Cash (1989), Backdraft (1991), Tombstone (1993), and Executive Decision (1996). In 1996, he reprised his Snake Plissken character for Carpenter's Escape From L.A. The following year, he starred opposite Kathleen Quinlan in the revenge thriller Breakdown before returning to the sci-fi/action realm with Soldier in 1998. It would be two years before movie-going audiences would again catch a glimpse of Russell, though with his roles in 2000 Miles to Graceland (again carrying on the Elvis associations that have haunted his career) and Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, the versatile actor proved that he was still very much on the scene. Is some of Russell's later day roles had stressed the action angle a bit more than the more dramatic aspects of the stories, the release of Dark Blue in 2003 combined both with Russell cast as a volitile police officer tracking a killer against the backdrop of the 1992 L.A. riots. In 2005, Russell played a frustrated father and horse-man in Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, showing audiences that for all his on-screen bombast, he still had a sensitive side. He quickly leapt back into the action-packed saddle, however, with a leading role in 2006's remake of The Poseidon Adventure, Poseidon. Soon afterward, he accepted a role that took a decidedly self-aware perspective on his own fame as an over-the-top action star as he signed on for the leading role in Death Proof, Quinten Tarantino's half of the double-feature Grindhouse. A tribute to the fantastically violent B-exploitation films of its title, Grindhouse would cast Russell as Stuntman Mike, a literal lady-killer with a car that can be crashed and smashed without ever allowing the driver to be hurt.

Trivia: American actor James Arness had an unremarkable Minneapolis childhood, but his wartime experiences shattered that normality - literally. During the battle of Anzio, Arness' right leg was peppered with machine gun bullets, and when the bones were set they didn't mend properly, leaving him with a slight but permanent limp. The trauma of the experience mellowed into aimlessness after the war. Arness became a "beach bum," lived out of his car, and worked intermittently as a salesman and carpenter. Acting was treated equally lackadaisically, but by 1947 Arness had managed to break into Hollywood on the basis of his rugged good looks and his 6'6" frame. Few of his screen roles were memorable, though one has become an object of cult worship: Arness was cast as the menacingly glowing space alien, described by one character as "an intellectual carrot," in The Thing (1951). For a time it looked as though Arness would continue to flounder in supporting roles, while his younger brother, actor Peter Graves, seemed destined for stardom. John Wayne took a liking to Arness when the latter was cast in Wayne's Big Jim McLain (1953). Wayne took it upon himself to line up work for Arness, becoming one of the withdrawn young actor's few friends. In 1955, Wayne was offered the role of Matt Dillon in the TV version of the popular radio series Gunsmoke. Wayne turned it down but recommended that Arness be cast and even went so far as to introduce him to the nation's viewers in a specially filmed prologue to the first Gunsmoke episode. Truth be told, Arness wasn't any keener than Wayne to be tied down to a weekly series, and as each season ended he'd make noises indicating he planned to leave. This game went on for each of the 20 seasons that Gunsmoke was on the air, the annual result being a bigger salary for Arness, more creative control over the program (it was being produced by his own company within a few years) and a sizeable chunk of the profits and residuals. When Gunsmoke finally left the air in 1975, Arness was the only one of the original four principals (including Amanda Blake, Milburn Stone and Dennis Weaver) still appearing on the series. Arness made plans to take it easy after his two-decade Gunsmoke hitch, but was lured back to the tube for a one-shot TV movie, The Macahans (1976). This evolved into the six-hour miniseries How the West Was Won (1977) which in turn led to a single-season weekly series in 1978. All these incarnations starred Arness, back in the saddle as Zeb Macahan. The actor tried to alter his sagebrush image in a 1981 modern-day cop series, McClain's Law -- which being set in the southwest permitted Arness to ride a horse or two. It appeared, however that James Arness would always be Matt Dillon in the hearts and minds of fans, thus Arness obliged his still-faithful public with three Gunsmoke TV movies, the last one (Gunsmoke: The Last Apache) released in 1992. In between these assignments, James Arness starred in a 1988 TV-movie remake of the 1948 western film classic Red River, in which he filled the role previously played by his friend and mentor John Wayne.

Trivia: Milburn Stone got his start in vaudeville as one-half of the song 'n' snappy patter team of Stone and Strain. He worked with several touring theatrical troupes before settling down in Hollywood in 1935, where he played everything from bits to full leads in the B-picture product ground out by such studios as Mascot and Monogram. One of his few appearances in an A-picture was his uncredited but memorable turn as Stephen A. Douglas in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln. During this period, he was also a regular in the low-budget but popular Tailspin Tommy series. He spent the 1940s at Universal in a vast array of character parts, at one point being cast in a leading role only because he physically matched the actor in the film's stock-footage scenes! Full stardom would elude Stone until 1955, when he was cast as the irascible Doc Adams in Gunsmoke. Milburn Stone went on to win an Emmy for this colorful characterization, retiring from the series in 1972 due to ill health.

Trivia: Following her training in regional theatre and radio, red-headed actress Amanda Blake was signed by MGM in 1949, where she was briefly groomed for stardom. Among her MGM assignments was 1950's Stars in My Crown, in which she was cast for the first time opposite James Arness. Film fame eluded Amanda, especially after her sizeable role in the 1954 version of A Star is Born was almost completely excised from the release print. By 1955, she had to make do with appearances in such epics as the Bowery Boys' High Society. Amanda's fortunes took a turn for the better later in 1955, when she won the role of Miss Kitty, the euphemistically yclept "hostess" of the Long Branch Saloon on the TV western Gunsmoke, which starred James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon. She remained with Gunsmoke until its next-to-last season in 1974. After Gunsmoke, Amanda went into semi-retirement save for a handful of film projects like the made-for-TV Betrayal (1974), the theatrical releases The Boost (1988) and B.O.R.N (1989), and the 1987 reunion project Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge. Amanda Blake died in 1989 at the age of sixty.

Trivia: American actor Buck Taylor was the son of western comical sidekick Dub "Cannonball" Taylor. Buck was born in 1938, coincidentally the same year that Taylor pere made his film debut in You Can't Take it with You. True to his heritage, Buck showed up in the occasional western, notably Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980) and Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983). For the most part, Taylor's film roles fell into the "young character" niche, notably his appearances in Ensign Pulver (1964), The Wild Angels (1966) (as motorcycle punk Dear John), and Pickup on 101 (1972). Buck Taylor will probably be seen on TV in perpetuity thanks to his recurring role as Newly O'Brian on the marathon TV western Gunsmoke, a role which he recreated for a 1987 Gunsmoke reunion film.

Trivia: The son of actors Harry Carey and Olive Golden, Harry Carey Jr. never answered to "Harry" or "Junior"; to his friends, family and film buffs, he was always "Dobe" Carey. Raised on his father's California ranch, the younger Carey spent his first six adult years in the Navy. While it is commonly assumed that he made his film debut under the direction of his dad's longtime friend John Ford, Carey in fact was first seen in a fleeting bit in 1946's Rolling Home, directed by William Berke. It wasn't until his third film, Three Godfathers (dedicated to the memory of his father) that Carey worked with Ford. Honoring his promise to Harry Sr. that he'd "look after" Dobe, Ford saw to it that the younger Carey was given a starring assignment (along with another of the director's proteges, Ben Johnson), in Wagonmaster (1950). Though he handled this assignment nicely, exuding an appealing earnest boyishness, Carey wasn't quite ready for stardom so far as the Hollywood "higher-ups" were concerned, so he settled for supporting roles, mostly in westerns. John Ford continued to use Carey whenever possible; in 1955's The Long Gray Line, the actor has a few brief scenes as West Point undergraduate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carey was also featured on the "Spin and Marty" segments of Walt Disney's daily TVer The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59). In later years, Carey's weather-beaten face was seen in choice character assignments in films ranging from The Whales of August (1987) to Back to the Future III (1990); he was also hired by such John Ford aficionados as Peter Bogdanovich, who cast Carey as an old wrangler named Dobie (what else?) in Nickelodeon (1976), and as an ageing bike-gang member named Red in Mask (1985). In 1994, Harry Carey Jr. published his autobiography, Company of Heroes. Carey died of natural causes at age 91 in late December 2012.

Trivia: American actress Gloria Dickson, born Thais Dickerson in Pocatello, Idaho, began acting in stock and touring companies when she was only twelve. In 1937 she made her feature-film debut in Mervyn LeRoy's They Won't Forget. As a contract player for Warner Bros, she went on to play leads in minor films and supporting leads in "A" movies. Tragically, at the age of 28, Gloria Dickson died in a fire at her home.

Trivia: American actor Read Morgan chose his profession after two years at the University of Kentucky, where he starred on the basketball court. In 1950, Morgan went on a regular dietary and exercise regimen that earned him quite a few photo spreads in major American magazines like TV Guide. Thanks to his physique, Morgan was cast as an athletic mountaineer in the Broadway play Li'l Abner, which led to TV work in a similar vein: he played a wrestler on US Steel Hour, a ballplayer on Twilight Zone, a skindiver on Adventures in Paradise and a boxer on Steve Canyon. Thus it was that Morgan was more than prepared for the strenuous requirements of his role as cavalry sergeant Tasker on the Henry Fonda TV-western vehicle The Deputy (1960). Following the cancellation of this series, Read Morgan found himself on call for innumerable rugged character roles, usually as sheriffs, detectives or highway patrolmen. Among his many film credits were Fort Utah (1967), Easy Come, Easy Go (1968), Marlowe (1969), Dillinger (1971), The New Centurions (1972), Shanks (1967), and the made-for-TV movies Return of the Gunfighter (1967), Helter Skelter (1976), The Billion Dollar Threat (1979), Power (1980) and A Year in the Life (1986).