(CBS) James Arness, the tall, iconic actor best known for playing Marshal Matt Dillon on the long-running television series "Gunsmoke," has died. He was 88. The Los Angeles Times reports the actor ...

‘Gunsmoke’ aired from 1955 to 1974 and set a new standard for TV drama Tereza Shkurtaj is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working for PEOPLE since 2025. Her work has previously appeared in ...

Seventy years ago, on September 10, 1955, a gunfighter named Matt Dillon first strode into Dodge City on CBS, Gunsmoke, helping to change the nature of TV Westerns, eventually running for 20 years, ...

“Gunsmoke” debuted on television in 1955. Stars of the show included James Arness as Matt Dillon; Burt Reynolds, who starred as Quint Asper, the blacksmith; Ken Curtis as Festus; Amanda Blake as Miss ...

When the classic western drama “Gunsmoke” finished its 20-year run on CBS in 1975, Los Angeles Times critic Cecil Smith made a bold prediction. “I have the feeling that the first moon colony we ...

Offscreen, James Arness traded Dodge City’s saloon dust for the comfort of his own king-size bed. Photographed in 1956, the towering Gunsmoke star relaxes with a script for an upcoming episode, ...

The 6-foot-7 actor, who also starred in the 1950s sci-fi classics "Them!" and "The Thing From Another World," thanks fans for their support with a posthumous letter on his website. By Mike Barnes ...

Origins: The role of Matt Dillon was never offered to John Wayne. Wayne, like many other film actors of the time, considered television an upstart medium unworthy of his talents. When CBS decided in ...

One running thread throughout the show was the will-they-or-won’t-they relationship between Dillon and Miss Kitty. While Arness and Blake shared a palpable chemistry, the two characters never truly ...