After you’ve become so invested in playing a character over the span of several decades, it can’t be easy to just walk away from it. After all, James Arness was Matt Dillon for 20 years. So when the time came to film the follow-up films, of course, he was all in. He wasn’t the only one of the original cast members who was excited about the reunions, either.
Buck Taylor and Amanda Blake both appeared with Arness in the made-for-television film, ‘”Gunsmoke”: Return to Dodge’, alongside Arness.
Turning to Art
Buck Taylor is most well-known for his eight-year stint as Newly O’Brien. But the actor is also a multi-talented man. Before he even went into acting, Taylor pursued a path as an Olympic gymnast.
At the same time, he was studying art at the University of Southern California. Then, he landed his breakthrough role and his entire life changed. Plus, the show wouldn’t be quite the same without him.
Buck Taylor After "Gunsmoke"
Although Taylor has continued to act straight into the 2000s, appearing in 2004’s "Tombstone", he’s shifted his focus back to art.
The actor can still be seen on film and TV from time to time, but he spends most of his days working on his paintings, which he sells on his website, bucktaylor.com. His work can also be seen displayed in several places throughout Texas.
Dirty Sally
The reunion films weren’t the only productions made to try and bring the world of Dodge back to life. In 1974, a year before the original series’ ultimate cancellation, a spinoff show called 'Dirty Sally' was released. It follows a junk collector from Dodge (Jeanette Nolan) who heads west to California in search of gold.
In the series, Nolan plays the title role, an older woman who chews tobacco and meddles in the lives of everyone she encounters on her way west. The show was only on the air for a single season, though Nolan received an Emmy nomination for her work on it.
Difficulties on Set
James Arness was no doubt one of the hardest working actors in Hollywood for his 20 years in the industry. He made every episode and did several of his own stunts, which required all kinds of prep work and training. But in the later years of filming, he was dealing with severe arthritis, which made working quite hard on him a lot of the time.
It was apparently so bad at times that producers tried to get all of his scenes for an episode shot in one day. That way, the actor had plenty of recovery time before the next time they needed him.