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Ken Curtis

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American actor and singer (1916–1991) For other people with the same name, see Kenneth Curtis.

Ken Curtis
Curtis as Festus Haggen 1964
BornCurtis Wain Gates
(1916-07-02)July 2, 1916
Lamar, Colorado, U.S.
DiedApril 28, 1991(1991-04-28) (aged 74)
Fresno, California, U.S.
Occupations
  • Actor
  • singer
Years active1941–1991
Height6 ft 0 in (183 cm)
Spouses
Lorraine Page ​ ​(m. 1943, divorced)​
Barbara Ford ​ ​(m. 1952; div. 1964)​
Torrie Ahern Connelly ​ ​(m. 1966)​
Children2
The old Bent County jail in Las Animas in southeastern Colorado, where Ken Curtis lived as a boy

Ken Curtis (born Curtis Wain Gates; July 2, 1916 – April 28, 1991) was an American actor and singer best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the western television series Gunsmoke.

Early years

Born the youngest of three boys in Lamar in Prowers County in southeastern Colorado, Curtis lived his first ten years on a ranch on Muddy Creek in eastern Bent County. In 1926, the family moved to Las Animas, the county seat of Bent County, so that his father, Dan Sullivan Gates, could run for sheriff. The campaign was successful, and Gates served from 1926 to 1931 as Bent County sheriff.

Curtis was the quarterback of his Bent County High School football team and played clarinet in the school band. He graduated in 1935. During World War II, Curtis served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945.

He attended Colorado College to study medicine, but left after a short time to pursue his musical career.

Career

Music

Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen and James Arness as Matt Dillon, 1968

Curtis was a singer before moving into acting, and combined both careers once he entered films. Curtis was with the Tommy Dorsey band in 1941, and succeeded Frank Sinatra as vocalist until Dick Haymes contractually replaced Sinatra in 1942. Curtis may have served simply as insurance against Sinatra's likely defection, and it was Dorsey who suggested that Gates change his name to Ken Curtis. Curtis then joined Shep Fields and His New Music, an all-reeds band that dispensed with a brass section.

Curtis met his 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 of the long-running country music radio program WWVA Jamboree.

Ken Curtis joined the Sons of the Pioneers as a lead singer from 1949 to 1953 and again from 1955 to 1957. His big hits with the group included "Room Full of Roses" and "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky".

Film

Columbia Pictures signed Curtis to a contract in 1945. He starred in a series of musical Westerns with the Hoosier Hot Shots, playing singing cowboy romantic leads.

By virtue of his second marriage, Curtis was a son-in-law of film director John Ford. Curtis teamed with Ford and John Wayne in Rio Grande. He was a singer in the movie's fictional band The Regimental Singers that actually consisted of the Sons of the Pioneers; Curtis is not listed as a member of the principal cast. It is possible that he played a bit part, but Curtis is best remembered as Charlie McCorry in The Searchers, and for his appearances in The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, and How the West Was Won. Curtis also joined Ford, along with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon, in the comedy Navy classic Mister Roberts. He was featured in all three of the only films produced by Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney's C. V. Whitney Pictures: The Searchers (1956); The Missouri Traveler (1958) with Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin; and The Young Land (1959) with Patrick Wayne and Dennis Hopper. In 5 Steps to Danger (1957 film), he is uncredited as FBI Agent Jim Anderson. Curtis also produced two extremely low-budget monster films in 1959, The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster.

Curtis guest-starred five times on the Western television series Have Gun – Will Travel with Richard Boone. In 1959, he appeared as cowhand Phil Jakes on the Gunsmoke season four episode, "Jayhawkers". He also guest-starred as circus performer Tim Durant 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 about a company of its namesake providing skydiving services, along with its leading star Larry Pennell. This series ran from 1961 to 1963 with 76 half-hour episodes in total. Curtis played the role of James (Jim) Buckley and Pennell was his young disciple Theodore (Ted) McKeever. This television show helped generate interest in sport parachuting.

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

Gunsmoke

Milburn Stone, Ken Curtis, Amanda Blake, and James Arness

Curtis remains best known for his role as Festus Haggen, the scruffy, cantankerous, and illiterate deputy in Gunsmoke. He joined the regular Gunsmoke cast in 1964, replacing Chester Goode, played by Dennis Weaver. While Marshal Matt Dillon had a total of five deputies over two decades, Festus held the role the longest (11 years), in 304 episodes. Festus was patterned after "Cedar Jack" (Frederick Munden), a man from Curtis' Las Animas childhood. Cedar Jack, who lived 15 miles south of town, made a living cutting cedar fence posts. Curtis observed many times that Jack came to Las Animas, where he would often end up drunk and in Curtis' father's jail. Festus' character was known, in part, for the nasally, twangy, rural accent which Curtis developed for the role, but which did not reflect Curtis' actual voice.

Besides engaging in the usual personal appearances most television stars undertake to promote their program, Curtis also traveled around the country performing at Western-themed stage shows at fairs, rodeos, and other venues when Gunsmoke was not in production, and even for some years after the show was cancelled. Curtis also campaigned for Ronald Reagan in 1976, during the future President's attempt to secure the Republican nomination from incumbent Gerald Ford.

In two episodes of Gunsmoke, Carroll O'Connor was a guest-star; years later, Curtis guest-starred as a retired police detective on O'Connor's NBC program In the Heat of the Night. He voiced Nutsy the vulture in Disney's 1973 animated film Robin Hood. A decade later, he returned to television in the short-lived Western series The Yellow Rose, in which he performed most of his scenes with Noah Beery, Jr.

Last years

In 1981, Curtis was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Curtis' last acting role was as the aging cattle rancher "Seaborn Tay" in the television production Conagher (1991), by western author Louis L'Amour. Sam Elliott starred in the lead role, and Curtis' Gunsmoke co-star Buck Taylor (Newly O'Brien) played a bad man in the same film. Buck Taylor's father, Dub Taylor, had a minor role in it.

Curtis married Torrie Connelly in 1966. They were married until his death in 1991 and he had two step-children.

A statue of Ken Curtis as Festus can be found at 430 Pollasky Avenue in Clovis, California, in Fresno County in front of the Educational Employees Credit Union. In his later years, Curtis resided in Clovis.

Curtis was a Republican and supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election.

Death

Curtis died on April 28, 1991, in his sleep of a heart attack in Fresno, California. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Colorado flatlands.

Selected filmography

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Television

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See also

References

  1. Matheson, Sue (December 15, 2019). The John Ford Encyclopedia. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 61–62. ISBN 978-1-5381-0382-1. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  2. McCall, Michael; Rumble, John; Kingsbury, Paul (December 16, 2004). The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-984044-1. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  3. "Bentsheriff.com". bentsheriff.com. Retrieved November 16, 2021.
  4. "Gunsmoke: GunsmokeNet.com". gunsmokenet.com. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  5. ^ Ap (May 1, 1991). "Ken Curtis, actor, 74, Festus on 'Gunsmoke'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  6. "Gunsmoke: GunsmokeNet.com". gunsmokenet.com. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  7. "Ken Curtis appeared in a number of cheesy movies," GunsmokeNet.com
  8. "Death: Torrie Ahern Connelly Curtis". Deseret News. November 13, 1997. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  9. "Ken Curtis statue," GunsmokeNet.com
  10. Critchlow, Donald T. (October 21, 2013). When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Stars, Studio Moguls, and Big Business Remade American Politics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521199186 – via Google Books.
  11. Ken Curtis Obituary, Los Angeles Times, GunsmokeNet.com
  12. McEveety, Vincent (February 13, 1990), December Days (Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller), Carroll O'Connor, Howard E. Rollins Jr, Alan Autry, Anne-Marie Johnson, Fred Silverman Company, Juanita Bartlett Production, MGM Television, retrieved August 31, 2020

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