They say bad things come in threes, and following the deaths of Don Knotts and Darren McGavin comes word that Dennis Weaver has passed away. When I was a kid, Saturday evening in my house meant HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL at 8:30, followed by GUNSMOKE at 9:00. I remember vividly watching the half-hour, black-and-white episodes of GUNSMOKE that featured Weaver as Deputy Chester Goode. One of the on-line obits of Weaver that I read referred to the character as "slow-witted", which I don't agree with at all. Chester wasn't dumb. Following GUNSMOKE, I remember Weaver in GENTLE BEN and then McCLOUD, and I thought he was great in his role as a rancher in the mini-series version of James Michener's novel CENTENNIAL. When I became a film buff and watched Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL, it was hard to believe that the crazed character Weaver played in that movie was the same actor as good old Chester.
I had another connection with Dennis Weaver, too, besides just watching him on TV and enjoying his work there. He had a half-brother who lived in the town where I grew up, and the half-brother was one of my dad's regular TV repair customers. So my dad, on several occasions, met Dennis Weaver while fixing the half-brother's TV, whenever Weaver would be in town visiting. To a kid, that was mighty impressive, having a father who had actually met Chester.
I hope this is the last old TV star we lose for a while. But it probably won't be.
Conan - Conan the Valorous
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4 comments:
To me, Dennis Weaver will always be the terrified driver engaged in a "Duel" to the death with a faceless and quite homicidial truck driver.
Bewteen this and the news that science-fiction writer Octavia Butler died, I ask for a pause is the inevitable tolling of the death bell. Just for a day or two, to deal with the power jolt of loosing McCloud, Carl Kolchak, and Barney Fife within one twenty-four hour stretch.
I loved Chester as a kid and one of my first great disappointments in life--other than not getting a pony for Christmas--was learning that Dennis Weaver left GUNSMOKE. I couldn't comprehend why anyone who was so perfect in a role could abandon it. Or maybe I thought that Weaver really was Chester and he was, in effect, walking away from his life. It was a tough thing to swallow.
A footnote to all this: I have a cousin whose name is Dennis Weaver. Different guy.
I forgot about Weaver being in DUEL. Pretty good film based on a really good story by Richard Matheson. I remember reading it in PLAYBOY when it first appeared. If I recall correctly, that same issue also had stories by Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch. Them were the days.
I remember seeing Weaver in several things as I was growing up. On top of the other losses this past weekend I find it even more sad that he has passed away. I don't like seeing that generation of actors go, its a bad loss. My wife and daughter have been watching Wildfire and were wondering why Weaver's character hadn't been on for awhile and one assumes now that he had gotten too sick to work. I echo your hopes that this is it for awhile.
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