#DerikLattig Latest On TV Shows

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama https://ezinearticles.com/expert/Derik_Lattig/2438328  series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. The stories  https://www.facebook.com/public/Derik-Lattig take https://plus.google.com/110187666621582812927  place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZCyLsaFb-XsX2wnW2CJpMQ playedhttps://plus.google.com/110187666621582812927   by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. When aired in the UK, the television series was initially titled Gun  https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Family-Pride-by-Derik-Lattig-/222329488586 Law,^[1] later https://plus.google.com/100040092596321517635 reverting to Gunsmoke.^[2] http://pingwi-fi.com/2010/08/garage-girlz-coming-to-a-station-near-you/ 

The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning^[3] wrote that among radio drama

https://vimeo.com/deriklattig   enthusiasts, "Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes. At the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "Gunsmoke was the dramatization of 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723/mediaindex  the American epic legend of the west. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp Western as romanticized by [Ned] Buntline, [Bret] Harte, and [Mark] Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend."^[4]

n the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a fan of the Philip Marlowe radio serial, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a hardboiled Western series, a show about a "Philip Marlowe of the Old West". Robinson instructed his West Coast CBS Vice President, Harry Ackerman,

https://about.me/DerikLattig   who had developed the Philip Marloweseries, to take on the task.^{[citation needed] http://cinematreasures.org/members/davidzornig/photos/168023} 

Ackerman and his scriptwriters, Mort Fine and David Friedkin, created an audition script called "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye" based on one of their Michael Shayne radio scripts, "The Crooked Wheel". http://www.sheknows.com/community/profile/DerikLattig  Two auditions were created in 1949. The first was very much like a hardboiled detective series and starred Michael Rye (credited as Rye Billsbury) as Dillon; the second starred Straight Arrow actor Howard Culver in a more Western, lighter version of the same script. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed.https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/426505027195040133/

A complication arose, though; Culver's contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do 

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/arnold8824/derik-lattig/  another Western series. The project was shelved for three years, when producer Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston discovered it while creating an adult Western series of their own.^{[citation needed]} https://deriklattig.contently.com/ 

Macdonnell and Meston wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the prevailing juvenile fare such as The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. Dunning^[5] notes, "The show drew critical acclaim for unprecedented realism." https://deriklattig.contently.com/ 

The radio series first aired on CBS on April 26, 1952 with the episode "Billy the Kid", written by Walter Newman, and ended on June 18, 1961. The show stars William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as Doc Charles Adams, Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell, and Parley Baer as Dillon's assistant, Chester Wesley Proudfoot. https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/426505027193932545/ 

Matt Dillon[edit]

William Conrad in 1952, when Matt Dillon was created on radio

Dillon was played on radio by William Conrad and on TV by James Arness. Two versions of the same pilot episode titled "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye" are in the archives with two different actors, Rye Billsbury and Howard Culver, playing Marshal "Mark" Dillon as the lead, not yet played by Conrad. Conrad was one of the last actors to audition for the role of Marshal Dillon. With a resonantly powerful and distinctive voice, Conrad was already one of radio's

https://myspace.com/newsguy497   busiest actors. Though Meston championed him, Macdonnell thought Conrad might be overexposed. During his audition, however, Conrad won over Macdonnell after reading only a few lines. Dillon as portrayed by Conrad was a lonely, isolated man, toughened by a hard life. Macdonnell later claimed, "Much of Matt Dillon's character grew out of Bill Conrad."^[6]

Meston relished the upending of cherished Western fiction clichés and felt that few Westerns gave any inkling of how brutal the Old West was in reality. Many episodes were based on man's cruelty to man and woman, inasmuch as the prairie woman's life and the painful treatment of women as chattels were touched on well ahead of their time in most media. As originally pitched to CBS executives, this was to be an adult Western, not a grown-up Hopalong Cassidy.

Dunning writes that Meston was especially disgusted by the archetypal Western hero and set out "to destroy [that type of] character he loathed". In Meston's view, "Dillon was almost as scarred as the https://www.linkedin.com/in/deriklattig/  homicidal psychopaths who drifted into Dodge from all directions." 

https://myspace.com/newsguy497 https://www.pinterest.com/deriklattig/derik-lattig/ hester was played by Parley Baer on radio, and by Dennis Weaver on television. Chester's character had no surname until Baer ad libbed "Proudfoot" during an early rehearsal. Initial Gunsmoke scripts gave him no name at all; his lines were simply slugged to be spoken by "Townsman". Again, Conrad's sense of what the program would be supervened, and Chester was born. Chester's middle initial was given as "W" in the June 15, 1958 episode "Old Flame", and a few episodes later, on the July 7, 1958 episode "Marshal Proudfoot", it is revealed that his middle name, as are his 10 siblings, is Wesley. The amiable  
https://www.amazon.ca/Derik-Lattig-Books/s? Waco expatriate was usually described as Dillon's "assistant", but in the December 13, 1952, episode 
https://www.amazon.com/Derik-Lattig/e/B0101G62SG "Post Martin", Dillon described Chester as 
http://www.dailymotion.com/derik-lattig Dillon's deputy. Contradicting this description, in the July 5, 1954, episode "Hank Prine" (episode 116, minute 3:02) Dillon corrects 
https://plus.google.com/115142510345368888126 a prisoner who describes Chester as his "deputy" stating "Chester is not my deputy", though they both agree Chester acts like he is. Whatever his title, Chester was Dillon's foil, friend, partner, and in an episode in which Chester nearly dies ("Never Pester Chester"), Dillon allows 
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723/ https://www.facebook.com/Derik.Lattig  that Chester was the only person he could trust. The TV series changed the newly limping Chester's last name from Proudfoot to Goode. Chester was played by Dennis Weaver who went on to star in the NBC Mystery Movie rotating TV series entry of a police drama with a comedic touch - McCloud in the early 1970s. Weaver, himself an impressive 6'2", often looked small alongside Arness' height at 6'7", this could be partly due to the character Chester having a limp. Season 2, episode 25 tells us that Chester was in the army. He would not have had the limp then, so probably got injured in the Civil War. Not long ago but long enough that he would have learned to live 
https://www.amazon.com/Derik-Lattig/e/B0101G62SG  with the limp and virtually forget it.

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