Amanda Blake

At 60 years old, Amanda Blake has this physical status:

Amanda Blake (February 20, 1929 – August 16, 1989) was an American actress best known for her role on the western television series Gunsmoke's red-haired saloon proprietress "Miss Kitty Russell."

She and her third husband, Frank Gilbert, operated one of the first successful breeding cheetahs in captivity.

Early life

Amanda Blake was born Beverly Louise Neill in Buffalo, New York, the only child of Jesse and Louise Neill (née Puckett) Neill. Her father was a banker. Blake, a telephone operator, and she briefly attended Pomona College before starting to act.

Catherine Moore (1752-1823), one of Amanda's ancestors, was a hero of the American Revolutionary War. She warned local patriots of Banastre Tarleton's attempt, giving them time to regroup and brace for the Battle of Cowpens (January 17, 1781), a significant American victory that helped prepare the British defeat at Yorktown.

Personal life

In 1954, Blake married Don Whitman and divorced him in 1956. She'll be heading to Gunsmoke's'saloon set' after Whitman's divorce. On the days when she wasn't needed, Blake felt as though it was home to her. She married Jason Seymour Day Jr. in 1964 and divorced him in 1967. Blake married Frank Gilbert in 1967 and divorced him in 1982. In 1984, she married Mark Edward Spaeth. Spaeth died in 1985.

Blake went into semi-retirement at her home in Phoenix, Arizona, and did not do much film or television work after Gunsmoke. She instead devoted more time to her animals. She had been known for bringing her pet lion, Kemo, to the Gunsmoke set. Kemo lived in an animal farm at her house, where she and her partner Frank Gilbert ran an experimental breeding program for cheetahs. They were one of the first to breed cheetahs in captivity; they raised seven generations of cheetahs.

In 1971, Blake and others formed the Arizona Animal Welfare League, the state's oldest and most comprehensive "no-kill" animal shelter. She assisted with the establishment of the Performing Animal Welfare Society in 1985 and invested a considerable amount of time and money in its promotion, as well as trips to Africa. According to rumors, Blake was a one-time board member of the Humane Society of the United States. In 1997, the Amanda Blake Memorial Wildlife Refuge in Herald, California, was opened. The sanctuary is a sanctuary for free-ranging African hoofed animals, the bulk of which were originally intended for exotic animal auctions or hunting ranches.

Blake was a big cigarette smoker who underwent oral cancer surgery in 1977. She became a supporter of the American Cancer Society and gave speeches around the country. She was the recipient of the society's annual Courage Award in 1984, which was presented to her by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Blake's doctor claimed she had actually died of AIDS, according to the mainstream media later. Her close friends have maintained that she was not a heroin user or sexually promiscuous, and that she may have contracted the disorder from a former husband. Blake died of liver disease caused by viral hepatitis at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, California, on August 16, 1989.

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Career

Blake was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the late 1940s as the studio's next Greer Garson. She appeared in a few Hollywood films, including the 1952 western Cattle Town and Miss Robin Crusoe's starring role in a 1954 Robinson Crusoe tale. In 1954, she appeared in A Star Is Born.

Blake was best known for her 19-year stint as Miss Kitty, the saloon-keeper on the television series Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1974. Blake brought a lion named Kemo to the Gunsmoke set on February 27, 1974.

Blake had no time for films because of her revolving role on television. She appeared on a number of television programs, including a recurring comedy routine on The Red Skelton Show; as a celebrity on Hollywood Squares, Tattletales, and the 1970s revival of Match Game; and camedies on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast.

Betty Lavon-Coate appeared in "Coate of Many Colors" on Rod Cameron's crime drama in 1957. State Trooper was a television station. She made two film appearances in The Boost, a drug-addiction drama starring James Woods and Sean Young, as well as B.O.R.N.

Blake was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City in 1968. She was the third female inducted into the National Guard after Tom Mix and Gary Cooper were selected in 1958 and 1966, respectively.

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