Like too many other TV characters, Gunsmoke’s Chester Goode seemingly vanished into thin air. Dennis Weaver last played the character on the TV western in Season 9’s “Bently.” That episode, at least, ...

Offscreen, James Arness traded Dodge City’s saloon dust for the comfort of his own king-size bed. Photographed in 1956, the towering Gunsmoke star relaxes with a script for an upcoming episode, ...

For the first nine seasons of Gunsmoke, James Arness' Marshal Matt Dillon was joined on the job by the lovable (albeit simple) Chester Goode, played remarkably by Dennis Weaver. A faithful and ...

Weaver played Chester Goode on Gunsmoke, quickly becoming one of the most beloved characters on the show. He joined the original cast alongside Arness, Amanda Blake, and Milburn Stone. They had ...

“Crack-Up” aired on Sept. 14, 1957, as the first episode of Gunsmoke Season 3. A gunman named Nate Springer (John Dehner) spells out trouble for Dodge City when he arrives with the intention of ...

Seventy years ago, on September 10, 1955, a gunfighter named Matt Dillon first strode into Dodge City on CBS, Gunsmoke, helping to change the nature of TV Westerns, eventually running for 20 years, ...

‘Gunsmoke’ aired from 1955 to 1974 and set a new standard for TV drama Tereza Shkurtaj is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working for PEOPLE since 2025. Her work has previously appeared in ...