Jesse Marinoff Reyes ( Jesse Marinoff Reyes Design, Maplewood, N.J.)
James Arness (1923-2011).
---James Arness---
It’s funny how a man who starred in something that aired before I was born, was a staple on television through my childhood and early teen years—and popped up occasionally as a television movie special well into my adult years—seems so much like it “was just on” a couple years ago, even when it hasn’t, albeit through reruns on nostalgia cable stations. And yet it still comes as a surprise that James Arness passed away at the age of 88 last year. Where Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” seemed a more nihilistic interpretation of the western myth (though probably more accurate than the “wild west” of Hollywood ever was), James Arness’s Marshall Matt Dillon perhaps best symbolized that mythological west in a way we as Americans would prefer to think of it. Decent and fair. A man of honor and the law. Hardworking and uncomplaining. A practical and enlightened, though plain spoken man—standing between “us” and the lawlessness and barbarity that the western territories could be. The performance conveyed all of those things without corniness or incredulity. A Gary Cooper for the age of television.
Happy trails Jim.
Gunsmoke
Little Golden Books/Simon & Schuster, 1958
Illustration: E. J. Dreany
COMMENTS