Interesting Facts about Ken Curtis Actor and Singer

Interesting Facts about Ken Curtis - was a singer and actor, known for his role as Festus Haggen on the  western television series Gunsmoke. 
Here are some interesting facts about Ken Curtis…
Curtis was a singer before acting, combining both careers once he started in films. He was with the Tommy Dorsey band in 1941, succeeding Frank Sinatra as vocalist until Dick Haymes replaced Sinatra in 1942. Curtis may have served simply as insurance against Sinatra's likely defection, it was Dorsey who suggested that Gates change his name to Ken Curtis. Curtis then joined Shep Fields and His New Music, an all-reeds band that dispensed with a brass section.
Curtis met his first wife, Lorraine Page, at Universal Studios, they were married in 1943. For much of 1948, Curtis was a featured singer and host of the long-running country music radio program WWVA Jamboree.
As a lead singer Curtis joined the Sons of the Pioneers from 1949 to 1952. His successful hits with the group included "Room Full of Roses" and "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky".
Curtis signed a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1945. Starring in a series of musical Westerns with the Hoosier Hot Shots, playing singing cowboy romantic leads.
By way of his second marriage, Curtis was a son-in-law of film director John Ford. Curtis teamed with Ford and John Wayne in Rio Grande. He was a singer in the movie's fictional band The Regimental Singers that actually consisted of the Sons of the Pioneers; Curtis is not listed as a member of the principal cast. It is possible that he played a bit part, but Curtis is best remembered as Charlie McCorry in The Searchers, The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, and How The West Was Won. Also joining Ford, along with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon, in the comedy Navy classic Mister Roberts. He was featured in all three of the only films produced by Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney's C.V. Whitney Pictures: The Searchers (1956); The Missouri Traveler (1958) with Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin; and The Young Land (1959) with Patrick Wayne and Dennis Hopper. In 5 Steps to Danger (1957), he is uncredited as FBI Agent Jim Anderson. Curtis also produced two extremely low-budget monster films in 1959, The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster. Also, in the film adaptation Conagher based on a book by popular writer Louis L'Amour, he starred opposite Sam Elliott as an aging cattleman.
Curtis guest-starred five times on the Western television series Have Gun–Will Travel with Richard Boone. In 1959, he appeared as cowhand Phil Jakes on the Gunsmoke season four episode, "Jayhawkers". He also guest-starred as circus performer Tim Durant on an episode of Perry Mason, "The Case of the Clumsy Clown", which originally aired November, 1960. Later, he appeared in Ripcord, a first-run syndicated action/adventure series about a company of its namesake providing skydiving services, along with its leading star Larry Pennell. This series ran from 1961 to 63 with 76 half-hour episodes in total. Curtis played the role of James (Jim) Buckley and Pennell was his young disciple Theodore (Ted) McKeever. This television show helped generate interest in the sport parachuting.
In 1964, Curtis appeared as muleskinner Graydon in the episode "Graydon's Charge" of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, also guest-starring Denver Pyle and Cathy Lewis.
Curtis remains best known for his role as Festus Haggen, the scruffy, cantankerous, and illiterate deputy in Gunsmoke. He joined the Gunsmoke cast in 1967, superseding the previous deputy, Thaddeus "Thad" Greenwood, played by Roger Ewing. While Marshal Matt Dillon had a total of five deputies over two decades, Festus held the role for the longest (11 years), in 304 episodes. Festus was patterned after "Cedar Jack" (Frederick Munden), a man from Curtis' Las Animas childhood. Cedar Jack, who lived 15 miles south of town, made a living cutting cedar fence posts. Curtis observed many times that Jack came to Las Animas, where he would often end up drunk and in Curtis' father's jail. Festus' was known, in part, for his nasally, twangy, rural accent which Curtis developed for the role, but which did not reflect Curtis' actual voice.
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