Ken Curtis height - How tall is Ken Curtis?

Refused an offer to appear as Festus Haggen in the movie Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge (1987), which reunited James Arness, Amanda Blake, Buck Taylor and Fran Ryan from the original series. Money was the issue. Producer John Mantley, interviewed for TV Guide when the movie aired, said Curtis had demanded double what Blake got; other sources say Mantley was at fault in offering Curtis an insultingly low salary (not specified in either account).

His first appearance on Gunsmoke (1955) as Festus Haggen was entitled "Us Haggens" s8e13 on Dec 08, 1962. His very first appearance on Gunsmoke was as a character named Phil Jacks in the episode "Jayhawkers," s5e30 on 31 January 1959.

Inducted (as a cast member of Gunsmoke (1955)) into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1981.

While appearing in John Ford westerns, he initially utilized his musical talents before turning to straight acting. In Rio Grande (1950) he was a guitar-playing lead-singing tenor with the "Regimental Singers". In The Quiet Man (1952) he played an accordion and sang tenor in the bar.

His stage name was changed to the easier-sounding "Ken Curtis" when he temporarily replaced Frank Sinatra in Tommy Dorsey's band in 1941.

Considering the kind of scruffy, backwoods, uneducated, Deep-South hillbilly types he played, many people would be surprised to hear that Ken Curtis wasn't actually born in the south but in the small town of Las Animas, Colorado, the son of the town sheriff. They would probably be even more surprised to learn that he began his show business career as a singer in the big-band era, and was a vocalist in the legendary Tommy Dorsey orchestra. He entered films in the late 1940s at the tail-end of the singing-cowboy period in a series of low-budget Westerns for Columbia Pictures. When that genre died out, Curtis turned to straight dramatic and comedy parts and became a regular in the films of director John Ford (who was his father-in-law).

In 1935 he went to a college in Colorado Springs, CO, to study medicine. While there his love for singing grew and he involved himself in various college musical events.

His maternal great-grandfather Sebron (Seaborn) Graham Sneed (1828-72) was the senior second lieutenant of Company A, Harrelson's Battalion, Arkansas Cavalry (Confederate) during the US Civil War. Sebron's brothers Samuel and William R. were privates in the same unit.