Word Celebrity Blog

James Arness


By 1952, American Audiences had grow to be accustomed to western heroes who never were.  These western heroes had been sanitized by the trail songs of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and the righteous gunplay of the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy .

Marshal Matt Dillon was different. He did not play the guitar or sing and never got the girl. He wore only one gun and fired it reluctantly,  He usually drew his gun last, in the dusty street duels.  Over the 20 years, Matt Dillon was shot 30 times.


























James Arness, a 6-foot 7-inch giant whose stoic personality was remarkably like his character’s, was ideal for the part of Marshal Matt Dillon. He had been reared in a family of Norwegian descent in Minnesota and became an outdoorsman who loved fishing and hunting.  He came home from World War II a wounded, decorated and aimless veteran.

He worked at menial jobs, tried radio broadcasting and was collecting veterans’ benefits when he drifted to Hollywood.

He developed slowly, appearing in 30 movies before his mentor, John Wayne,  recommended him for the part.  “Gunsmoke,” which began in 1952 as a radio show with William Conrad, was shone on the CBS television network as a half-hour black and white drama that was set in a raw Kansas town, in the 1870s.


























The Star was born James King Aurness in Minneapolis on May 26, 1923. He was one of two sons of Rolf Cirkler Aurness (July 22, 1894 – July 1982) and the former Ruth DueslerAurness (died September 1986). His father's ancestry was Norwegian, his mother's German. The family name had been Aursnes, but when Rolf's father Peter Aursnes emigrated from Norway in 1887, he changed it to Aurness. Arness and his family were Methodists. His father was a traveling salesman of medical supplies and his mother later became a newspaper columnist. (His parents were divorced in the 1940s.)

James Arness attended John Burroughs Grade School, Washburn High School and West High School in Minneapolis  in Minneapolis. Despite "being a poor student and skipping many classes", he graduated from high school. He got his diploma in 1942, James Arness said, it was "only because the principal still felt grateful to his grandfather, a doctor from Norway, who’d given her family free treatment during the Depression."

“She told me to get my act together and do something that would make him proud of me,” James Arness said in his autobiography. Although he appeared in school plays, James had no interest in performing: he had dreams iof going to sea.



























4310 Colfax Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is the boyhood home of James and Peter Aurness. They lived at this residence with parents, Rolf and Ruth  Aurness. It is eight houses from the lake.

After high school, James Arness worked as a courier for a jewelry wholesaler, loading and unloading railway boxcars at the Minneapolis freight-yards, and as a logger in Pierce, Idaho. At his mother’s urging, he enrolled at Beloit College in Wisconsin

James attended one semester at Beloit College before receiving his draft notice in 1943. James Arness was drafted into the wartime Army as an infantryman.


























James Arness had wanted to be a naval fighter pilot, but he had poor eyesight which might bar him.  But, his height of 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) dashed any hopes, since 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) was the limit for aviators. Instead, he was called for the Army and reported to Fort Snelling, Minnesota in March 1943.

When James Arness entered the army, he trained at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, before shipping out for North Africa. From the start, military training and discipline “gave me a new sense of worth and belonging,” he wrote in his memoir. “Those were happy days for me.”

After landing at Casablanca, PFC James Arness was a private in the famed Third Infantry Division. He was part of the invasion force at Anzio. Because of his stature, he was chosen to be first off the landing craft (to test the depth of the water) when his division landed at Anzio, Italy.

Ten days after the invasion, James Arness was severely wounded in the leg and foot. His right leg was shattered by German machine-gun fire. He spent eighteen months recovering in overseas and stateside hospitals. His wounds finally resulted in his medical discharge from the army. James Arness was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, the European -A frican - Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three bronze battle stars, the World War II Victory Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge.


























When James Arness was asked about his army experience, he replied: "The landing itself was almost bloodless, but within 24 hours, the Germans had begun to ring the beachhead with eight divisions to our two."

"It was a very intense time. I got wounded, hit in the leg. Unfortunately so many guys got terrible wounds, and many didn't get off the beach. It was a terrible thing over there. All war is."

"I was in the Army hospital for about a year, and they put you through a whole lot of physical rehab. I was in this Camp Carson out in Colorado, and you do all these exercises and then they start you walking. I wound up walking about 10 miles a day."

"For a long time it didn't really bother me at all. But in later years, I began to get a little — you could tell the leg was doing something there. You could see in pictures, especially if you were aware of it beforehand. I had a little hitch in my getup there."

James Arness wounds would plague him the rest of his life. He underwent a series of operations, but for many years he suffered pain, especially when mounting a horse, and walked with a slight limp. 

While James Arness was recuperating in a Clinton, Iowa hospital, he was visited by his younger brother Peter (who was later to gain fame as actor "Peter Graves").  Peter suggested to his older brother take a radio course at the University of Minnesota. James did so, and while he was there a teacher recommended him for a job as an announcer at a Minneapolis radio station.

Though seemingly headed for success in radio, he followed a boyhood friend’s suggestion and went with the friend to Hollywood in hopes of getting work as film extras.

He studied at the Bliss-Hayden Theatre School under actor Harry Hayden, and while appearing in a play there was spotted by agent Leon Lance. James Aurness soon began acting, in films. When with RKO, they changed his name to "Arness".  Lance got James Arness his film debut in "The Farmer's Daughter", starring Joseph Cotten and Loretta Young. He was Loretta Young's (Katie Holstrom) brother, Peter Holstrom (1947). Loretta Young won an Academy Award for her part. The director of the film, H.C. Potter, recommended that James drop the “u” from his last name and soon thereafter the young actor was officially known as James Arness.

In an interview, James Arness said:  "When I got out of the Army, I went home to Minneapolis. I was there for about a year, and this friend of mine, who had gone through school and all, he called up — it was like Christmas week of 1945, and he had just gotten out. He said let's meet and have dinner. So we went downtown and met, and there was a blizzard going on down there. We had dinner and then came out and he said he met this guy from L.A. in the Navy He said, "We could be out there right now, walking around in our short sleeves and going to the beach ... I think we ought to go."
  
"Anyway, we wound up coming out here. That was in January of '46 when I got here. I thought maybe I would just stay for three or four months until it warmed up at home a little, and then go back. But by that time, I had this part in this picture, "The Farmers Daughter." "

He began acting at an amateur theater and met the producer Dore Schary, who put him in a few movies in 1947. Unsure of his future, he drifted around Mexico, but returned to Hollywood determined to be an actor called James Arness.

He played the monster in the original "The Thing", and later starred in "Them!", battling giant ants. His first leading role was "Two Lost Worlds in 1950", which left James Arness shipwrecked on a volcanic island filled with dinosaurs.

When he was asked about the different spellings of his name, james replied: "Our actual Norwegian name is Aursnes, but it got too complicated. My grandfather came over from Norway and he went through Ellis Island, so they changed that name around (to) A-u-r—n-e-s-s. And then when I got into — the first picture I was ever in was called "The Farmer's Daughter" (1947). It was a movie, and the producer of that movie was a really nice guy, Dore Schary, who later became the head of MGM. He suggested, "Why don't you just drop the 'u' out and make 'Arness'?" I wasn't going to argue with the guy"

In talking about his height, James Arness explained: "Gunsmoke," I think I probably got parts because I was tall.

Usually played heavies, part of a gang of heavies, and I think maybe I got cast in that thing because I was tall — a big guy, see? I think a lot of the parts I had were because of my size. It worked out pretty well."

The premiere of  "Gunsmoke", established the tone for the the rest of the series.  Marshal Dillon faced a gunslinger who had killed an unarmed man. The outlaw insisted on a showdown, and the marshal, always has to accommodate him.

Marshall  Dillon says to Doc Adams. “He has got to be eliminated.”

When the show premiered in 1955, his mother Ruth Aurness told the Star Tribune that she was distressed about the kind of character her son had signed up to play. "But I suppose I have to think about his career," she said.

At first, Gunsmoke was half an hour, and filmed in black and white. After six half-hour years, it expanded to a full hour. Beginning with its twelfth season, Gunsmoke was filmed in color. It was a top-10 rated show for thirteen of its twenty seasons, and it is still the longest-running dramatic show in prime time TV history.

In total, 635 Gunsmoke episodes were filmed, plus five TV movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, making it the only prime time TV series that ran in five consecutive decades.

The follow-up TV movies were "Matt Dillon" movies, but there were no Gunsmoke "reunion" shows.

After Gunsmoke, James Arness starred on a few short-lived TV series, "How the West Was Won" and the cop show "McClain's Law". His role as Zeb Macahan in "How the West Was Won" made James Arness into a cult figure in many European countries. Since the series has been re-broadcast many times around Europe, it has become more popular than it is in the United States.

James Arness also did the narration for Harry Carey, Jr.'s "Comanche Stallion", which was directed by Clyde Lucas.

At six feet, seven inches tall, James Arness is believed to be the tallest actor ever to star in a television series. In Gunsmoke's medium-close shots, the other actors were usually standing on elevated platforms, so their faces could be in the camera frame.
























James Arness and Virginia Chapman.


In 1948, James Arness was married to Virginia Chapman and adopted her son by a previous marriage, Craig. The couple had two children, Jenny and Rolf. James and Virginia were divorced in 1963.

James Arness's personal life wasn't as fortunate as his professional one. His ex-wife Virginia and daughter Jenny both died of drug overdoses.

James Arness, who rarely agreed to interviews, credited much of his success in playing tough characters to his Minnesota upbringing. "It must be the Viking blood in me," the Norwegian-American actor said in 1955. "I'm always thinking about the times I sailed my sailboat in [Lake] Calhoun when I was going to West High."


























In 1978, James Arness married Janet Surtees.  They lived in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.


























Mr. James Arness was nominated for three Emmy Awards in the “Gunsmoke” years and he later made dozens of television movies, including “The Alamo” (1987) and “Red River” (1988). He also starred in the mini-series “How the West Was Won” (1977) and the short-lived crime series “McCain’s Law” (1981). From 1987 to 1993 he also made five “Gunsmoke” television-movie sequels.

“James Arness: An Autobiography,” was written with James E. Wise Jr., and was published in 2001.


























At the age of 87, James Arness and his wife Janet.


James King Arness (Aurness) was 88 years of age when he passed away in his sleep at his home in Brentwood, Los Angeles California.


His wife Janet Arness and son Rolf Arness survive him, along with his stepson, Jim Surtees.  He is also survived by his six grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

A private memorial service will be held in California.
























Preceeding him in death:  Jenny Lee, died a suicide in 1975., and Craig died in 2004.  James Arness’s younger brother Peter Graves died in March 2010.


























James Arness had written a letter to be posted on his official website in the event of his death that reads:

"I had a wonderful life and was blessed with so many loving people and great friends.I wanted to take this time to thank you for many years of being a fan of Gunsmoke. The Thing, How the West Was Won and all the other fun projects I was lucky enough to have been allowed to be a part of.  I had the privilege of working with so many great actors over the years."





















Many of you, when you think of James Arness, will remember him as the fictional hero Matt Dillon, as he fought for Peace and Justice. And that is a good thing.

I really believe that when I NOW think about James Arness, I will remember a real life hero, the young private at Anzio who had his body chewed up by machine gun fire and lived with pain for the rest of his life. He fought for Peace and Justice in this real world that we live in. And that is a good thing.

James Arness Was a Much Greater Hero than Matt Dillon could ever be, even if the re-runs of Gunsmoke go on for a hundred years.