...after a columnist called James Arness lazy

https://www.metv.com/stories/a-gunsmoke-producer-once-wrote-in-to-a-newspaper-after-a-columnist-called-james-arness-lazy

A good old Western standoff, right in the middle of the newspaper.

Here we have an article about an article that according to writer has been lost to the sands of time, translation he didn't read the article he's commenting on. We have no way of knowing what asinine point the original writer was making so we are left to guess.

In fact, James Arness needs no defense, he received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his service in World War II. There was an Odd Couple episode where Felix remarked, he was first off the boat at Anzio, Arness actually was the first off the boat, he was 6 foot 7 they wanted to see how deep the water was so he got off the landing vehicle first.

In the first 10 years Gunsmoke was on the air they did 377 episodes! To put that in context Law and Order passed the 377 mark in season 18. I would estimate that Arness played the lead character in the individual episodes 70% of the time that's 264 episodes alone. As the years went by he was less involved with the series, in the last few seasons he probably played the lead character in 6 out of the 24 episodes with an additional 6 episodes he had a significant presence although he not playing the lead character, in the rest he had a smaller roles. If that's the issue consider this, Paul Newman has 15 IMD credits 1955-58, between 1965-74 he had 15, Robert Redford had 22 credits between !960-61, 12 credits between 62-64 and only 15 between 65-74. Arness was able to work less because his presence was worth that much, the same story as Newman and Redford.

Here we have an article about an article that according to writer has been lost to the sands of time, translation he didn't read the article he's commenting on. We have no way of knowing what asinine point the original writer was making so we are left to guess.

In fact, James Arness needs no defense, he received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his service in World War II. There was an Odd Couple episode where Felix remarked, he was first off the boat at Anzio, Arness actually was the first off the boat, he was 6 foot 7 they wanted to see how deep the water was so he got off the landing vehicle first.

In the first 10 years Gunsmoke was on the air they did 377 episodes! To put that in context Law and Order passed the 377 mark in season 18. I would estimate that Arness played the lead character in the individual episodes 70% of the time that's 264 episodes alone. As the years went by he was less involved with the series, in the last few seasons he probably played the lead character in 6 out of the 24 episodes with an additional 6 episodes he had a significant presence although he not playing the lead character, in the rest he had a smaller roles. If that's the issue consider this, Paul Newman has 15 IMD credits 1955-58, between 1965-74 he had 15, Robert Redford had 22 credits between !960-61, 12 credits between 62-64 and only 15 between 65-74. Arness was able to work less because his presence was worth that much, the same story as Newman and Redford.

I didn't bother to read the article, so I hope he wasn't attacking his service record. Now if it was just about his acting, I will agree with the newspaper critic about him being a lazy actor. There was a story about Wayne wanting to give him the part of Sam Houston in the Alamo, but Arness stood him up, so to get even, Wayne gave the role to Richard Boone. Thid is why you never seen Arness in another Wayne movie after that incident.

For a lot of aspiring actors, television westerns was just a steady paycheck until something bigger and better came along.