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 Wayne took it upon himself to line up work for Arness, becoming one of the withdrawn young actor's few friends.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: 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: The son of a Rhodes Scholar, Wayne Rogers attended Princeton University and acted with the college's Triangle Club players, then forgot all about performing for several years. After navy service, Rogers headed to New York to learn the intricacies of the world of finance. But with aspiring actor Peter Falk as his roommate, it was only a matter of time before Rogers would again yearn for the smell of greasepaint. He took classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse while supporting himself as a busboy and lifeguard. During these lean years, Rogers amazed Falk and his other friends with his uncanny ability to invest his meager earnings into winning propositions. Even after making it as an actor, Rogers continued dispensing wise financial advice to his show-biz buddies, earning the affectionate soubriquet "The Wizard." After Broadway, film, and daytime soap opera experience, Rogers landed his first prime time TV starring role, playing hard-riding Luke Perry on the 1960 series Stagecoach West. During a lull in his acting career in the mid-1960s, Rogers suddenly turned producer, bankrolling a horror quickie called The Astro Zombies, from which he earned back a 2000% profit on a $47,000 investment. In 1972, Rogers was cast as irreverent army surgeon "Trapper John" McIntyre on a new sitcom called M*A*S*H. Three years later, he abruptly stopped showing up on the set. Claiming that the producers had promised him that he'd be the star of M*A*S*H, Rogers was incensed that Alan Alda had emerged as top dog, so he quit the series cold. The producers slapped on a $2.9 million breach of contract suit, whereupon Rogers countersued; these legal volleys went back and forth for over a year before an amenable settlement was ironed out. Like many other M*A*S*H bailouts, Rogers had difficulty finding success as a solo TV performer: of his three subsequent starring series, City of Angels, House Calls and High Risk, only House Calls (1979-82) lasted beyond its first season. Wayne Rogers has had better luck as the star of such made-for-TV movies as Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (1975), It Happened One Christmas (1977), The Girl Who Spelled Freedom (1986) and American Harvest (1987). The founder of the Wayne Rogers & Company investment firm, the veteran film and television actor was given his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. He died in 2015, at age 82.

Trivia: Rough-edged character actor Morgan Woodward is the son of a Texas physician. Specializing in Westerns, the 6'3" Woodward has been seen in scores of big-screen oaters, and in 1956 held down the semi-regular role of Shotgun Gibbs in the TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. He has also made quite a few non-Western appearances on such video weeklies as Star Trek and The A-Team. In his spare time, Morgan Woodward is a licensed pilot.

Trivia: Born in Connecticut to an immigrant Irish couple, Ed Begley ran away from home several times before making a complete break from both his family and his formal education at the age of 13. For the next two decades, Begley knocked around in a variety of activities, from Naval service to working as bowling alley pin boy, before obtaining an announcer's job at a Hartford radio station in 1931. Ten years later, Begley moved to New York, where he became a prolific radio actor; from 1944 through 1948, he played the title role in the radio version of Charlie Chan. His belated Broadway debut at age 43 came in a short-lived play titled Land of Fame. In 1947, Begley created the role of benighted war profiteer Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons; that same year, he was assigned a solid supporting part in his first film, Boomerang (1947). He was a familiar figure in TV's "golden age" of the 1950s, co-starring in the original video productions of Twelve Angry Men and Patterns. In 1955, he made the first of 789 appearances as the William Jennings Bryan counterpart in the Broadway drama Inherit the Wind, co-starring first with Paul Muni and then with Melvyn Douglas. Despite his ever-increasing activity, Ed Begley was standing in the unemployment compensation line in 1961 when he was informed that he'd been Oscar-nominated for his performance in Sweet Bird of Youth. Justifiably proud of his Oscar statuette, Begley reportedly carried it with him everywhere he went, even on short airplane flights! Ed Begley died at 69 while attending a party at the home of Hollywood press agent Jay Bernstein; he was the father of popular movie and TV leading man Ed Begley Jr.

Trivia: Pennsylvania-born actor Don Keefer enjoyed a 60-year-plus career on stage and screen that saw him range freely across character parts and leading roles in both fields. An actor from his youth, he started early playing leads, portraying the title role in The Adventures of Marco Polo for a production of the Child Study Association. He won the Clarence Derwent Award for his early work on Broadway, and spent his early career working alongside the likes of Ethel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, and José Ferrer, and under such directors as Moss Hart, Elia Kazan, and Margaret Webster (including the famed production of Othello starring Paul Robeson). Keefer was a charter member of the Actors' Studio, and originated the role of Bernard, the studious neighbor son-turned-lawyer in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He was the only actor to remain with the production for its entire Broadway run, and subsequently made his screen debut in 1951 in the movie adaptation of the play produced by Stanley Kramer and directed by Laslo Benedek. From that beginning, he went on to appear in more than 130 movie and television productions, in between theatrical work on both coasts (including a stint at the Theatre Group at UCLA under John Houseman). Highlights of his stage career include a highly acclaimed touring production of Anton Chekhov: The Human Comedy, focusing on the lighter side of Chekhov's work. On screen as on stage, Keefer played a wide variety of parts -- he made a fine villain-turned-neutral in "Winchester Quarantine," an early (and very powerful) episode of Have Gun Will Travel, but was equally good as Ensign Twitchell, the comically (yet tragically) over-eager and officious junior officer in Joseph Pevney's Away All Boats, during this same period. Don Keefer was still working in the late '90s, in movies such as Liar Liar and an episode of Profiler. But amid hundreds of portrayals, Keefer's single most memorable role for most viewers -- other than Bernard in Death of a Salesman -- is almost certainly that of Dan Hollis, the doomed neighbor whose birthday celebration comes to a hideous end (his head popping out of a giant jack-in-the-box) in the 1961 Twilight Zone show "It's a Good Life."

Trivia: Character actor Art Batanides made a number of appearances in film and television, but will be best remembered for his work on the Police Academy franchise and on the extremely popular late-'70s/early-'80s television series Happy Days. Batanides died in early 2000, at age 77.