Back To
Blogs

The Ken Curtis Story

By Robert Deason

Key Takeaways

  • Curtis made his mark as Festus in Gunsmoke.
  • Before Gunsmoke, Curtis gained fame as a singer.
  • Curtis has hidden connections to Hollywood’s biggest names.

Ken Curtis is closely identified with his most famous role of Festus Haggen in Gunsmoke, but there is a lot more to the man than you may know.

Curtis was born Curtis Wain Gates in Lamar, Colorado on July 2, 1916, alongside his twin brother Chester. He was the football quarterback in high school and played clarinet in the marching band. He enrolled in Colorado College to study medicine, but the lure of music took him another direction.

Music Before Television and Movies

Curtis made his first musical movie in 1941, served two years in the U.S. Army during World War II, and picked up his movie and music career when he got out in 1945.

Festus’s high-pitched, nasally drawl was all an act, part of the character in Gunsmoke, but in reality, Curtis had a smooth baritone speaking and singing voice. He performed with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and succeeded Frank Sinatra for a year as lead vocalist. While singing with the band, Curtis changed his birth name to Ken Curtis at Dorsey’s suggestion. He appeared in a number of Western musicals, and off and on from 1949 to 1957, Curtis performed as the lead singer in a western-based group called the Sons of the Pioneers. An early hit was “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds.”

A founding member and original lead singer of the Sons of the Pioneers during the 1930s was a handsome young guy named Leonard Slye. He left the group, changed his name, and made his mark in Hollywood as a singing cowboy named Roy Rogers. Like his predecessor, Curtis found success mixing singing and acting. Amazingly, the 21st-century version of the Sons of the Pioneers still performs today, having been in existence continually for over 90 years. Lucky Gunsmoke fans may catch Curtis as Festus singing in several episodes of the long-running show. He composed the song “Six Shiny Black Horses,” which he sang alongside Slim Pickens in the episode “Once a Haggen.” In 1968, Curtis released an album containing some of his songs from the show.

More Before His Big Gunsmoke Break

Did you know Curtis starred in another television series before Gunsmoke? It was a syndicated show about skydiving called Ripcord from 1961-1963. Curtis played James Buckley, an older, calm mentor to his best friend Ted McKeever, who was played by Larry Pennell.

Also in the cast was Shug Fisher, who played airline pilot Charlie Kern. Fisher and Curtis were bandmates in the aforementioned Sons of the Pioneers.

Ripcord aired 76 total episodes during its run and was credited for generating more interest in skydiving in the United States at the time.

The Biggest of Breaks

Curtis had big shoes to fill when he joined Gunsmoke. He replaced a beloved character, Deputy Chester Goode, during the ninth season. To help viewers accept the change, producers shot a scene of Marshal Matt Dillon embracing both Chester and Festus in Chester’s last appearance.

As hoped, viewers embraced Curtis in the role of Festus. He started out as a somewhat simple, silly man who grew to become the moral compass of the show. Once in an interview, Curtis admitted he thought Festus was a better character than Chester, who, in his opinion, just followed the Marshal around whining about things.

Curtis turned Festus into a multi-dimensional man—funny, flawed, and fierce—who viewers identified with and adored. Curtis took so well to the role of a TV lawman because he grew up inside the county jail in Las Animas, Colorado, where his father was sheriff and his mother cooked for the prisoners. Curtis played Festus in 304 episodes until the show ended in 1975 after its 20th season. Curtis made guest appearances in a number of other shows, and in 1983 appeared as a regular in another series for one season: The Yellow Rose starring Cybil Shepherd.

More Life on the Big Screen

While married to his second wife, Barbara Ford, Curtis claimed the famous film director, John Ford, as his father-in-law. Ford cast Curtis in some of his biggest hits, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, Mister Roberts, and The Alamo, among others. His biggest role came in The Searchers (1956) in which, ironically, the Sons of the Pioneers sang the movie theme song.

Curtis and John Wayne became friends while making these movies, just as his Gunsmoke co-star, James Arness, had while making other films with the Duke. Curtis produced two extremely low-budget monster movies in 1959, The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster. His final film appearance came in 1991’s Conagher, the same year he died in his sleep of a heart attack.

The Personal Side, Accolades

Curtis married three times, first to actress Lorraine Page in 1943. They divorced, and then he met and married film editor Barbara Ford in 1952. Twelve years later, they divorced.

Finally, he wed non-celebrity Torrie Ahern Connelly in 1966. They were together until Curtis’s death on April 28, 1991. She had two children from a previous marriage, so these stepchildren were the only children Curtis ever had.

In 1981, Curtis was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. If you’re ever in Clovis, California, you can see a statue of Curtis as Festus in front of the Educational Employees Credit Union. Curtis resided in Clovis.

Featured Content