‘Gunsmoke’ aired from 1955 to 1974 and set a new standard for TV drama Tereza Shkurtaj is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working for PEOPLE since 2025. Her work has previously appeared in ...

Seventy years ago, on September 10, 1955, a gunfighter named Matt Dillon first strode into Dodge City on CBS, Gunsmoke, helping to change the nature of TV Westerns, eventually running for 20 years, ...

Origins: The role of Matt Dillon was never offered to John Wayne. Wayne, like many other film actors of the time, considered television an upstart medium unworthy of his talents. When CBS decided in ...

The 6-foot-7 actor, who also starred in the 1950s sci-fi classics "Them!" and "The Thing From Another World," thanks fans for their support with a posthumous letter on his website. By Mike Barnes ...

A close-up of John Wayne in his cowboy getup in the first episode of 'Gunsmoke' titled "Matt Gets It" Image via CBS If you're at all familiar with television Westerns, then you'd undoubtedly have ...

According to the latest Nielsen streaming report, Gunsmoke is one of the top 10 most-watched acquired series across all measured streaming services. Yes, the 70-year-old Western TV show adapted from a ...

Few shows have run on network television for as long as Gunsmoke ran on CBS. For twenty years, the Western series braved television sets after first jumping from a radio drama to the screen, and later ...

James Arness, 88, the iconic actor who rode "Gunsmoke" into history as the longest-running prime-time drama, has died. According to a statement on his website, he died of natural causes. Even though ...