@Benton12 said:

For more on Alan Alda favoring Kim ll Sung see my other postings!

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Standing by everything I said!

@Benton12 said:

Standing by everything I said!

Yes, I'm sure you are.

@pt100 said:

@bratface said:

@Benton12 said:

Substantiation. Alan Alda liked Kim II Sung mass-murderer-- wrong of him. But Mr. Alda did zero on what made Larry Linville so brilliant as Frank Burns. He stated ( in his autobio) that Linville managed to play Frank Burns many different ways and Alda did not know how he did it. Ken Curtis was a very similar actor to Larry Linville. He could play Festus quite a differently from episode to episode! He could be incredible. In the last season of Gunsmoke watch and see the ultra-incredible countenance Curtis makes in the show's opening credits. How they bypassed him for an Emmy was mysterious and criminal. Dennis Weaver had no such ability to play Chester so differently. Weaver was a solidly good but an inferior actor.

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Hi @bratface. I guess you've read at least part of this weird thread. I certainly don't mean to be insulting, but I think @Benton12 has an obsessive fixation on Ken Curtis and may also have ADD. I'm concerned for him.

He also seems not to understand that an actor's performance is based largely on the writing and direction, and may involve many retakes to get it the way the director wants. Just looking at Curtis's relative lack of awards vs. Weaver's slew of awards sort of says it all. Curtis was an okay character actor that didn't seem to have the range that Weaver had, but nothing could ever convince @Benton12, so why bother?

Now he'll probably put me on Ignore also, which is fine. It just means that everyone else except him will benefit from the interchange.

His harping on different actors supposedly 'loving' & 'promoting' Kim Il-sung's policies just irks me, along with his bible thumping & love for the 'orange overlord'! And his not allowing anyone to disagree with him is just childish. Most of the time I just ignore him but sometimes I just have to respond.

In 1968 Millburn Stone won a richly deserved Emmy as Dr. Galen Adams on Gunsmoke. Nothing wrong with giving Stone it as he had excellently and steadily stayed in character all those years. But Ken Curtis offered something way better than just a steady performance. He offered a steady performance and ( like I said)one with tremendous variation! He really deserved an Emmy much more than the highly deserving Stone did. I strongly suspect there was bigotry against giving Curtis or the steady but unvaried James Arness an Emmy because there was getting to be a trend against violence on TV. Gunsmoke would soon open with Marshall Dillon riding a horse rather than firing a gun. The Emmy award board (?) was getting negative towards actors playing gun toting types. Even being good men doing it!

I am sure they kept Millburn Stone from doing TZ himself. Sure he wanted to do it. Legendary show TZ was-- see my other postings! He may have been good in that robot ep with Inger Stevens. Stone playing what became John Hoyt's part!

@bratface said:

His harping on different actors supposedly 'loving' & 'promoting' Kim Il-sung's policies just irks me, along with his bible thumping & love for the 'orange overlord'! And his not allowing anyone to disagree with him is just childish. Most of the time I just ignore him but sometimes I just have to respond.

I didn't ever run into him until this thread, so I wasn't aware of all these weird quirks, including his devotion to the orange overlord. But now that I know that, it all makes sense. Thanks for filling me in. I don't plan to put him on ignore unless I keep running into him, which I doubt I will.

To the rest of you reading: three points.

1. Was Ken Curtis barred from doing TZ from 1959 when it became a network show or was it by like 1963 ( when he was more of a regular on Gunsmoke) that they forbid him to ever appear on it?
2. Actors like him doing westerns often deserved more credit than they get. They often have to act while riding a horse ( or in his case donkey). Also, to have put yourself in a somewhat 19th century state of mind. It is way often harder to do that than just sit in a 20th or 21 st century room comfortably and talk.
3. The 17,18, and 19th seasons of Gunsmoke were considered somewhat watered down. Perhaps they were often. But these eps sometimes explored the slightly softer side of Festus' character which we could easily have believed and/or figured out existed anyway. An ep where a slow friend of his had to go to a home for such individuals was a good showcase to show this side of Festus. Not a deeper side of him. It takes a lot strength and depth to be a gun toting and still very good, fair lawman.But, again, the softer side.

They really should have made Inger Stevens a regular on Twilight Zone. They nearly did that for Robert Culp on Outer Limits. Miss. Stevens should have had a role in each season of TZ for maybe 3 times a season. Due to her very great beauty and intense acting she could easily have brought fine, very depthful characters and very appealing ones each time she guested. If she had been in 'Shadow Play' as Mrs. Ritchie her part would have been more substantial.

@Benton12 said:

@pt100 said:

@Benton12 said:

Well, you see Ken Curtis was a far more amazing actor than Dennis Weaver. His Festus was not just scripted and directed but relied on the very special and highly unique talents of Mr. Curtis. So if frantic acting was the best Dennis Weaver ever did then a chance at frantic acting by Curtis was expected to be mega-incredible. And a performance that would have made the Emmy association(?) lose all credibility if they did not give KC an Emmy for it.

That's a matter of opinion. Weaver was able to carry the lead in a long-running TV series, Curtis never did. Curtis's only award was a Bronze Wrangler Western Heritage Award (in 1967), not individually but as a member of the Gunsmoke cast. In contrast, Weaver was nominated for and won a large number of awards, including prime time Emmys. Weaver also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television. The list is far too long to put here. If you want to see it, go here. And Weaver also turned in an acclaimed performance in Steven Spielberg's film "Duel".

I personally got as tired of the Festus character as I did of the Chester character. And I liked the early Weaver episodes better than the later Curtis episodes. But as I said, it's a matter of opinion.

Gunsmoke lasted just great without Chester! He was obnoxious in 'Duel'! He was screaming throughout a quarter of the movie!

Let me chase you down the freeway in a tanker truck and see how calm and quiet you are!