The Thing (on his way to Another World)

Or
Gunsmoked

Or
He Died with His Boots On
(Props to Monty)
James Arness, the man who rid Dodge City of all crime except prostitution, has died at the age of 88. At 6’7”, Arness was the tallest leading man in TV history, and played the longest running character in a single series, Marshall Matt Dillon, for 20 years, then again in a series of derivative TV movies. Dillon embodied the Western standard strong, silent lawman, but Gunsmoke stayed on the air by avoiding the weekly archetypal villains with a more nuanced view of a chaotic frontier with an evolving morality where the good guys didn’t always win. Another strong draw was Dillon’s relationships with crotchety Doc Adams, oddball deputies Chester and Festus and madam with a heart of gold Miss Kitty. Arness, a decorated World War II veteran wounded at Anzio, had previously starred as the titular The Thing From Another World, then a number of Westerns. Arness got the role of a lifetime when Gunsmoke moved from radio to TV in 1952 and producers thought better of allowing William Conrad to continue as the roly-poly long arm of the role, and John Wayne recommended his Hondo co-star. Once the top-rated show on TV, it outlasted all of its competitors and spawned dozens of copycats. Arness outlived all but a few of his Dodge City neighbors and his younger brother Peter Graves.