Dennis Weaver's Gunsmoke Role Took A Surprising Physical Toll

When Dennis Weaver arrived in Hollywood in the early 1950s, he was one of many New York City transplants from the Actors Studio who was eager to show off his "method" training in films and television. While some veteran Hollywood actors were put off by the interiority of the method approach, studios and networks were keen to get their hands on ultra-talented young thespians like Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and Shelly Winters because, at a basic level, a star is a star regardless of how they prepare for a role.

Was Weaver a star? His Actors Studio classmate Winters thought so, which is why she helped him land a contract at Universal Studios in 1952. It didn't take long for Weaver to start booking small parts in B Westerns for the studio, and with his athletic 6'2" frame he certainly looked capable of licking any bad guys that came his way (provided he wasn't the bad guy in question). But there was always something a touch off about Weaver's presence. He just seemed a tad too idiosyncratic to be a conventional leading man. This strange quality was apparent when he got cast as Chester Goode on the long-running CBS TV Western "Gunsmoke." As the sidekick to James Arness' U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, Weaver came off as likable and capable, but that limp made him feel a bit like damaged goods.

It turns out the limp was Weaver's idea, and it proved difficult to shed when he left "Gunsmoke" in 1964.

In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Weaver revealed that he improvised the limp after one of the show's producers noted that a sidekick like Chester should possess a physical quirk that made him visibly, physically inferior to Dillon. The one-time track-and-field star who fell just a places short of being named to the 1948 U.S. Olympic decathlon team swallowed his pride and gave his character a bum leg. When he got cast, the limp stuck. And when he departed "Gunsmoke," the limp came with him.

As James Arness wrote in his autobiography:

"Dennis later told me he had a heck of a time losing his limp after he left the show. On other shows when a director yelled 'action,' he'd automatically start to limp. It took him several months to walk normal when on camera."

Method actors occasionally have a hard time leaving their characters behind, so, given that Weaver played Chester for a staggering 290 episodes, it's not terribly surprising to learn he couldn't just drop all of the role's mannerisms. I'm not sure how long the limp hung around, but it was completely gone when he took on the title lawman role of "McCloud" in 1970 — although there was always something a bit off about McCloud, too.

Arness, however, who took "Gunsmoke" very serioiusly, never felt Weaver diminished himself as Chester. According to his autobiography, "I often found myself playing second fiddle to him when he would appear limping along beside me or enacting his famous twangy call, 'Mr. Dillon.'" Amusingly, Weaver would've normally had a height advantage on his co-star, but at 6'7" Arness towered over just about everyone with whom he shared the screen.