Ken Curtis

At 74 years old, Ken Curtis has this physical status:

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

Despite appearing on Gunsmoke in other roles, he was first cast as Festus in season 8 episode 13, 1962 "Us Haggens."

Kyle Kelly's next appearance in "Lover Boy" was on Season 9, episode 2.

In "Prairie Wolfer" season 9 episode 13, Curtis joined the cast permanently as Festus.

Early years

Curtis was born in Lamar, southeastern Colorado, and lived his first ten years on a farm on Muddy Creek in eastern Bent County. The family moved to Las Animas, Bent County's county seat, in 1926, so Dan Sullivan Gates, his father, ran for sheriff, was able to run for sheriff. Gates served from 1926 to 1931 as Bent County sheriff, and the campaign was fruitful. The family lived below the prisoner line, since the jail was the entire second floor and his mother, Nellie Sneed Gates, cooked for the prisoners. On the grounds of the Bent County Courthouse in Las Animas, the jail is located for historical preservation purposes.

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

He attended Colorado College to study medicine but then had to leave after a short time to pursue his musical aspirations.

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Career

Curtis was a singer before he went on to act, and he combined both professions as he began filming. Curtis appeared on Tommy Dorsey in 1941 and replaced Frank Sinatra as vocalist until Dick Haymes contractually replaced Sinatra in 1942. Curtis may have been simply an insurance against Sinatra's defection, and it was Dorsey who suggested that Gates change his name to Ken Curtis. Curtis joined Shep Fields and His New Music, an all-reeds band that refused to have a brass section.

Curtis met Lorraine Page, his first wife, at Universal Studios, in 1943, and they were married. Curtis was a featured singer and host of the long-running country music radio show WWVA Jamboree for much of 1948.

Ken Curtis performed as a lead singer with the Sons of the Pioneers from 1949 to 1952. "Room Full of Roses" and "Ghost Riders in the Sky" were two of his group's most popular hits.

In 1945, Columbia Pictures agreed to a Curtis contract. With the Hoosier Hot Shots, he appeared in a string of musical Westerns, singing cowboy romantic leads.

Curtis was a son-in-law of film director John Ford by virtue of his second marriage. In Rio Grande, Curtis worked with Ford and John Wayne. Curtis was not identified as a member of the principal cast, and he was a singer in the film's fictional band The Sons of the Pioneers. While it's likely that he was part of it, Curtis is best remembered as Charlie McCorry in The Searchers, The Quiet Man, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, and How The West Was Won. Curtis was also joined Ford by Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon in the comedy Navy classic Mister Roberts. In all three of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney's C. V. Whitney Pictures: The Traveler (1956), Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin; and The Young Land (1959) with Patrick Wayne and Dennis Hopper. He is uncredited as FBI Agent Jim Anderson in 5 Steps to Danger (1957 film). Curtis also produced two very low-budget monster films, The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster in 1959. Also, in the film adaptation of Conagher based on a book by popular writer Louis L'Amour, he appeared opposite Sam Elliott as an elderly cattleman.

Curtis appeared on the Western television show Have Gun – Will Travel with Richard Boone. On the Gunsmoke season four episode, "Jayhawkers," he appeared as cowhand Phil Jakes in 1959. Tim Durant appeared on "The Case of the Clumsy Clown," an episode of Perry Mason, which first appeared on November 5, 1960. He appeared in Ripcord, a first-run syndicated action/adventure series about a company of its namesake providing skydiving services, as well as its leading actor Larry Pennell. The series ran from 1961 to 1963, totaling 76 half-hour episodes. Curtis appeared in James (Jim) Buckley and Pennell as his young disciple Theodore (Ted) McKeever. This television program piqued my 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, as well as guest-starring Denver Pyle and Cathy Lewis.

Curtis is best known for his role as Festus Haggen, the scruffy, cantankerous, and illiterate deputy in Gunsmoke. He joined the Gunsmoke cast in 1967, superseding the previous deputy, Thaddeus "Thad" Greenwood, who was played by Roger Ewing. Although Marshal Matt Dillon had a total of five deputies over the past two decades, Festus was the longest-serving role in 304 episodes. The 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 off cutting cedar fence posts. Jack came to Las Animas, where he would often be inebriated and in Curtis' jail. In part, Festus' character was known for his nasally, twangy, rural accent that Curtis adapted for the role, but it did not reflect Curtis' authentic voice.

Curtis went around the country performing at Western-themed stage shows at fairs, rodeos, and other venues even after the show was cancelled, in addition to performing in the usual personal appearances that television stars make to promote their cause. During Ronald Reagan's bid to oust incumbent Gerald Ford's nomination, Curtis campaigned for him.

Carroll O'Connor appeared on two episodes of Gunsmoke, and years later, Curtis appeared as a retired police detective on O'Connor's NBC show In the Heat of the Night. In Disney's 1973 animated film Robin Hood, Nutsy the vulture appeared. In the short-lived Western series The Yellow Rose, in which he appeared in the majority of his scenes with Noah Beery, Jr., he returned to television a decade later.

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

Curtis' last film role was as the elderly cattle rancher "Seaborn Tay" in the western author Louis L'Amour's television series Conagher (1991). Sam Elliott appeared in the lead role and Curtis' Gunsmoke co-star Buck Taylor (Newly O'Brien) played a bad man in the same film. Dub Taylor, Buck Taylor's father, was involved in it in a small way.

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

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

In the 1964 US presidential election, Curtis was a Republican who endorsed Barry Goldwater.

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