Where there was ‘Gunsmoke,’ there’s now a new ‘Wildfire’
Recently, Dennis Weaver called his old “Gunsmoke” castmate Jim Arness to wish him a happy birthday.
After all, Arness, who played Marshal Matt Dillon to Weaver’s Chester Goode, bought Weaver a swimming pool.
“Jim is the salt of the earth,” says Weaver, “We have such a good time talking about the old days.
“When we were doing ‘Gunsmoke,’ we used to play cards together. Our favorite game was called ‘pitch.’ As soon as we’d break for lunch, we’d run up to his dressing room and play cards.
“We played for quarters, but Jim wasn’t very good. He used to say, ‘I paid for Dennis’ swimming pool.’ “
Not that Weaver has a whole lot of time for swimming. He turned 81 in early June, but he keeps himself quite busy.
His ninth TV series, “Wildfire,” airs Monday nights at 8 on ABC Family (cable channel 39 in Spokane, 69 in Coeur d’Alene). Set in the world of horse racing, it focuses on a troubled teen girl who is released from a juvenile detention center to work at a ranch run by Weaver.
Weaver, who makes his home in Colorado, also is an on-air host of the Encore Western Channel (cable channel 523 in Spokane, 253 in Coeur d’Alene), which regularly airs “Gunsmoke” reruns.
And he heads the Weaver Institute of Ecolonomics, an organization he founded to fight environmental pollution.
“I’ve got a lot on my plate,” says Weaver. “(ABC Family) understands that and wanted me anyway. I said, ‘What the heck? Let’s do it.’ As long as it’s not too heavy, and it’s proven to be not too heavy, it’s ideal for me.”
On “Wildfire,” he’s surrounded by young actors who were a long way from being born when he began his TV career 50 years ago on “Gunsmoke,” where he stayed until 1964 and won an Emmy.
“I love to work with young people,” he says. “For a couple of them, this is their first job. One young fellow had just been parking cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When we first started shooting the series, the kids were a little bit in awe that I’ve been doing this for 50 years.”
After leaving “Gunsmoke,” Weaver starred in the series “Gentle Ben” from 1967 to 1969 before landing “McCloud,” on which he played Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud, a transplanted New Mexico lawman in modern-day New York City. The series ran until 1977.
“I knew that if I kept playing (Chester) until ‘Gunsmoke’ was over, I would never get to play anything else,” says Weaver. “I felt the urge to play the leading man with the success of my show on my shoulders.”
Post-“McCloud,” Weaver has never stopped working, whether in feature films, TV series – including “Buck James,” “Stone” and “Emerald Point N.A.S.” – or in TV films, such as 1989’s “The Return of Sam McCloud.”
His most memorable TV movie came in 1971 with “Duel,” a terrific road-rage drama directed by a young man named Steven Spielberg.
“Once in a while, I run into him,” says Weaver. “I gave him an award a year or so ago.
“That film really holds up, and it’s played all the over the world. It’s so easy to translate because there’s hardly any dialogue.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Julia Duffy (“Newhart”) is 54. Actress Isabelle Adjani is 50. Actor Yancey Arias (“Kingpin”) is 34. Actor Tobey Maguire is 30. Actress Madylin Sweeten (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) is 14.