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 Wayne took it upon himself to line up work for Arness, becoming one of the withdrawn young actor's few friends.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: Blonde, blue-eyed supporting, character, and occasional leading actor Richard Mulligan has worked on stage, screen, and television. He made his feature-film debut in Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), but only occasionally appeared in movies through the early '70s. One of his notable roles was that of the arrogant General Custer opposite Dustin Hoffman in Arthur Penn's Western epic Little Big Man (1970). Mulligan made his first TV appearance in the telepic Pueblo (1973). His film career has encompassed a wide variety of genres, but in the late '70s, he turned primarily to comedy. On television, Mulligan is best known for playing Burt Campbell on the long-running comedy Soap (1977-1981) and for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Dr. Harry Weston on the sitcom Empty Nest (1988-1995). His older brother, Robert Mulligan, is a director.

Trivia: General purpose actor Norman Alden was first seen by filmgoers in 1960's Operation Bottleneck. Most often seen in take-charge roles, Alden was critically acclaimed for his portrayal of a middle-aged retarded man in the NYC-filmed Andy (1965). The actor's series-TV credits include the thankless role of "Frank" on the "Electra Woman/Dynagirl" segments of Saturday morning's The Krofft Supershow. More artistically satisfying was Norman Alden's brief tenure as lawyer Al Cassidy on the Lee Grant TV sitcom Fay (1975).

Trivia: Trained at New York's Professional Children's School, Warren Berlinger made his first stage appearance at the age of 11. At 17, Berlinger was showered with critical praise for his performance in the 1955 Broadway production A Roomful of Roses, in which he appeared with his future wife, actress Betty Lou Keim. Both Berlinger and Keim repeated their roles in the 1956 film version of Roses, retitled Teen-age Rebel. In 1958, he won a Theatre World Award for his performance in Blue Denim, again re-creating his role in the 1959 film adaptation. He scored a huge hit in the 1963 London production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, essaying his favorite role, J. Pierpont Finch. In films, Berlinger's stock-in-trade has been the portrayal of plump, good-natured schmoes; he was still conveying this image into the 1980s and 1990s in films like The World According to Garp (1982) and Hero (1992). On television, he played the lead in the "Kilroy" episodes of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color(1965) and had regular roles on The Joey Bishop Show (1961), as Joey's brother Larry, The Funny Side (1971), A Touch of Grace (1973), Operation Petticoat (1977) and Small and Frye (1983). Distantly related to comedian Milton Berle, Warren Berlinger appeared with "Uncle Miltie" in the 1975 feature Lepke.

Trivia: Red-headed, ruddy-faced American supporting actor Ken Swofford made his movie debut in 1964's Father Goose. Swofford hit his peak on television in the 1970s and 1980s, playing explosive, loudmouthed, stuffy types. He was brilliant as Winchell-like columnist Frank Flannagan in the weekly 1975 version of Ellery Queen, then went on to essay subtler variations of this character in Switch (1975-78) and The Eddie Capra Mysteries (1978-79). He was one of the singular delights of the syndicated version of Fame (1983-87), as the kids' perennial nemesis, vice-principal Morloch. Off camera, the affable Swofford got along famously with his young Fame co-stars, and was one of the series' biggest boosters on the promotional-tour circuit. More recently, Ken Swofford was seen in the recurring role of Lt. Capalano in Murder She Wrote (1984-96).

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: 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: Few actresses of the 1950s could play shanty tramps and "trailer trash" with more gusto than Fay Spain. The actress' signature role was Darlin' Jill, the inbred temptress in Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre (1958). Spain also worked for quickie-movie king Albert Zugsmith, playing the Earthly emissary of the demonic Mickey Rooney in Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960). Spain also played a relatively sympathetic character in 1960's Al Capone. Periodically retiring in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Fay Spain's last important film role was Marcia Roth, wife of mobster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), in The Godfather, Part II (1972).

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.