For nearly 20 years, Blake played Miss Kitty Russell on the popular Western TV series Gunsmoke. Although when she died in August 1989, the media initially reported that she died of cancer, the cause of death was later confirmed to be AIDS-related complications. It is not known how she contracted the virus.
They knew that if he kissed her, the next time he better kiss her twice, show a little more passion.” As James Arness told the Archive of American Television, “I think they felt that… you could only go so far with it and then you'd have to change the character and nature of the show, so they kept it in that groove.
Blake left her estate, principally a $400,000 home in Los Angeles, to Derby's animal refuge. However, her only surviving relatives--her mother, sister and two cousins -- are contesting the will, which was executed only three days before Blake died.
Gunsmoke made Ken Curtis' Festus Haggen a series regular to replace Dennis Weaver's beloved Chester Goode after he left to pursue other acting opportunities. However, Curtis refused to return for the first made-for-tv Gunsmoke movie after its 20-season run because of a couple of serious disagreements with a producer.
The CONTROVERSY that surrounded THE FINALE OF "GUNSMOKE" and Miss Kitty's death!
Who did Matt Dillon marry in Gunsmoke?
A: Matt Dillon (James Arness) and Kitty (Amanda Blake) never married during the series 1955-75 run, although close watchers of the show were convinced they had connected at some time. But in a 1973 episode, Matt had a brief affair with another woman, Mike Yardner (Michael Learned), while he had amnesia.
Things all turn out for the best in the end. Festus helps save the Pugh family's welfare, Av Marie and Toby get married and plan to leave for California, and Dibble even gets up from under his tree, but the rest of the Gunsmoke leads have nothing to do at all.
In an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Weaver confessed that he had decided to leave the series because he felt that the character had run its course. Specifically, he said, "After almost ten years, I want to walk without a limp."
Miss Kitty secretly picks up the child of one of her best friends at the stage depot. The child, Thad (played by Roger Mobley), was sent to her because his mother was beaten to death by his father, a wanted outlaw named Tucker Ferrin. Tucker is played by John Lasell, who only appeared on Gunsmoke this one time.
The cast of Gunsmoke was able to get pretty chummy with each other during the show's twenty-season run, to the point where they felt like a family. Leading this cast of Western stars was James Arness, a man who was— apparently— as tall as he was kind.
' ” Arness, who remained close to Weaver after he left the series, praised him as a “really fine actor.” “We really liked each other a whole lot,” Arness said.
First of 6 episodes where Pat Hingle played Dr. John Chapman as a replacement for Doc Adams when Milburn Stone left the series for heart bypass surgery.
The emotionally troubled Virginia Arness attempted suicide twice, in 1959 and in 1960. In 1975, Jenny Arness died of an apparently deliberate drug overdose. Two years later, an overdose that police deemed accidental killed her mother. Arness married Janet Surtees in 1978.
Gunsmoke, a gritty depiction of American West life, featured screen legends like Burt Reynolds and John Wayne in guest roles. Some Gunsmoke actors still living and working today include Roger Ewing, Buck Taylor, Kim Darby, and William Shatner.
In 1967, CBS decided to cancel Gunsmoke due to declining ratings, which reflected the fact that the Western genre was becoming increasingly out of favor with the public. Between 1963 and 1967, the ratings for Gunsmoke had declined to the point where the show fell outside the Top 30 in the Nielsen ratings.
MacRae was also cast multiple times on the long-running Gunsmoke, appearing once in the role of Fanny in the 1962 episode "Half-Straight" and then, between 1962 and 1965, appearing four times as April, the girlfriend of Festus Haggen, one of the series' main characters.
When Blake decided not to return for the show's 20th (and final) season, the character was said to have returned to New Orleans. She was replaced by the hoarse-voiced, matronly actress Fran Ryan (known to many as the second Doris Ziffel on CBS's Green Acres .)
