James Arness Said No Other Male Actors Wanted to Work With Him Before ‘Gunsmoke’ Because of His Height
Gunsmoke actor James Arness became a legendary name in television for his long-lasting performance as Matt Dillon. However, he didn’t achieve this success overnight. Arness endured several hardships, especially when it came to the politics of Hollywood. Fortunately, Gunsmoke allowed the actor to join a platform that would give him a massive amount of exposure to audiences across the country.
James Arness didn’t initially want to be an actor
According to a 1957 TV Guide interview, Arness talked about his climb to working on Gunsmoke. He didn’t initially have any ambition to make a move into the acting field. It all started when he went to a rehearsal at a small Hollywood theater to support a friend who wanted to become an actor. Nevertheless, Arness received an invite from the director to join the group, and he agreed to try it out for fun.
Hollywood agent Leon Lance saw Arness in the play and arranged a meeting with him at RKO Studios the next day. He never expected anything to come of it, but it ended up going much better than he expected.
“I showed up all right, but I didn’t expect anything to happen,” Arness said. “But, believe it or not, within five minutes, this Lance guy had talked them into hiring me. At first, they wanted to give me a couple hundred dollars a week for two weeks work, but Lance wouldn’t accept. Well, they upped the salary to $400. Of course, when that two weeks stretched into 17, I didn’t complain none.”
‘Gunsmoke’ actor James Arness said other male leads didn’t want to work with him because of his height
Before Arness landed Gunsmoke, he had to deal with other politics in Hollywood with potential co-stars. MGM put him under contract, but they didn’t anticipate that other actors would have an issue working with him because of his height.
“None of the leading men at the studio wanted to be in the same picture with me-or, rather, they didn’t want me to be in the same picture with them,” Arness said. “I was put in some films, like Hellgate and The People Against O’Hara, but even though the roles were good, it didn’t look like I’d ever amount to much there. The studio and me, we finally decided to go separate ways.”
Arness stood at a staggering 6’7″, but it took another tall actor to understand his difficulty and move him onto another part of his career.
The actor worked on ‘Gunsmoke’ for 20 years
Western movie star John Wayne was 6’4″ and saw Arness’ potential. After seeing his work on the stage, Wayne decided to sign him to a personal contract, which lasted three years.
Arness was convinced that Wayne was offered the lead role in Gunsmoke, although the movie star always denied it. He had no interest in television and only wanted to star in feature films, so he recommended Arness for the part. Nevertheless, the Gunsmoke star said, “He’s the kind of guy who would do a generous thing like that and never let anyone know.”
