From MyWay News:
‘Gunsmoke’ Actor Dennis Weaver Dies
By BOB THOMAS
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Dennis Weaver, the slow-witted deputy Chester Goode in the TV classic western “Gunsmoke” and the New Mexico deputy solving New York crime in “McCloud,” has died. The actor was 81.
Weaver died of complications from cancer Friday at his home in Ridgway, in southwestern Colorado, his publicist Julian Myers said.
Weaver was a struggling actor in Hollywood in 1955, earning $60 a week delivering flowers when he was offered $300 a week for a role in a new CBS television series, “Gunsmoke.” By the end of his nine years with “Gunsmoke,” he was earning $9,000 a week.
When Weaver first auditioned for the series, he found the character of Chester “inane.” He wrote in his 2001 autobiography, “All the World’s a Stage,” that he said to himself: “With all my Actors Studio training, I’ll correct this character by using my own experiences and drawing from myself.”
The result was a well-rounded character that appealed to audiences, especially with his drawling, “Mis-ter Dil-lon.”
When I was 14/15 (I was in the hospital on my birthday), I had surgery on my right hip that resulted in a permanent limp. My friends in high school (and again in college) gave me the nickname ‘Chester’ after the Gunsmoke character. I never knew until I read this article that McCloud and Chester were the same actor. No wonder I liked McCloud so much.
Don Knotts, Dennis Weaver, Octavia Butler, Coretta King, Rosa Parks…what a line at the buffet table that must be!