Dennis Weaver

This is to celebrate last year’s 100th anniversary of the birth of Dennis Weaver, who died in 2006 aged 81 of complications from cancer at his home in Ridgway, Colorado. Born in Joplin, Missouri where he grew up, he lived for a number of years in Shreveport, Louisiana & Manteca, California. He studied for a degree in fine arts at the University of Oklahoma, where he was a gifted track and field athlete, being placed sixth in the decathlon in Olympic trials. He then was a fighter pilot for the US Navy in World War 2, flying the Grumman F4F Wildcat. After the war he changed from sports to acting, studying at the Actors Studio in New York City and appearing in plays on Broadway. He was eventually helped by Shelley Winters in getting a contract with Universal. He started out in westerns in 1952 but was in six episodes of Dragnet 1954-5. However in 1959 he won a Best Supporting Actor primetime Emmy for his portrayal of Sheriff’s helper Chester Goode in Gunsmoke 1955-64 which was his big break; also had a leading role in Kentucky Jones 1964-5. He also achieved great popularity as Marshal Sam McCloud 1970-77 & TV movie The Return of Sam McCloud 1989 as a lawman from Taos, New Mexico working in Manhattan, New York City, a spinoff of Clint Eastwood’s Coogan’s Bluff. Weaver’s oft-repeated line of “There you go” became part of popular culture. He built an impressive total of 104 screen credits and also appeared in some bigger films Duel at Diablo 1966, A Man Called Sledge 1970, was famously in Spielberg’s first movie Duel 1971, the mini-series Centennial 1978-9 & was Buffalo Bill Cody in Lonesome Dove 1994-5. He was an involved President of the Screen Actors Guild 1973-5. He was also a fervent environmentalist and active in recycling and alternative energy as evidenced at his homes in Colorado & previously at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and established the Institute of Ecolonomics in Berhoud, Colorado. Had in part a Native American ancestry traced back to Cherokee and Osage. As well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his TV work, he has one on the Dodge City Trail of Fame. In 1981 he was inducted with a Bronze Wrangler into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.