will always be remembered for his success on the small screen starring in the Western TV series Gunsmoke, the police drama McCloud and last but not least he was the star of Steven Spielberg’s first feature length cult film, the acclaimed Duel.

Hailing from Joplin in Missouri, he was born to parents of Irish, Scottish, English, Cherokee and Osage descent. From a young age the signs were there that he had a thespian quality.

Having studied drama at the University of Oklahoma, he served as a pilot in the United States Navy during WWII. In 1948, he tried out for the U.S. Olympic team in the decathlon. After he was unsuccessful in entering the team, Weaver went to New York to break into acting.

Weaver’s theatre debut came in Come Back, Little Sheba’s Broadway stage run. In order to master his craft, he joined The Actors’ Studio where he studied under Lee Strasberg (The Godfather Part II). While he acted Weaver supported his family by doing a number of jobs that included selling tricycles, vacuum cleaners and women’s stockings.

During his tenure at the Actors Studio, Weaver struck up a friendship with actress Shelley Winters (A Place in the Sun) and when she saw him in Tennessee Williams’s Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton she then recommended him to Universal Pictures, which signed him up. But since he was offered only small roles in westerns among them The Lawless Breed (1952), The Redhead from Wyoming (1953), War Arrow (1954) and Chief Crazy Horse (1955) he decided to leave Universal.

Winters, however, did not give up on Weaver, encouraging him to appear with her in a Los Angeles stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Playing the gruff Stanley Kowalski, Weaver impressed many theatre critics who claimed that his performance even surpassed that of Marlon Brando in the original Broadway stage production.

While under contract to Universal, Weaver had been allowed to secure parts in films for other studio productions such as The Nebraskan (1953), Dragnet (1954) and Seven Angry Men (1955). His big break finally came in 1955, while working delivering flowers the director of Seven Angry Men, Charles Marquis Warren, decided to test him for a new television series. The role would be of Chester Goode in Gunsmoke, the longest running Western series in American Television history (1955 to 1975).

When Gunsmoke was first screened, it was an immediate success for CBS. The series crowned Weaver’s star status in more ways than one; he became a popular household name and won an Emmy award for best supporting actor in a TV series. His celebrated onscreen line: “Mister Dillon”, became a favourite catchphrase among many viewers, young and old.

Having become famous as Chester, Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) cast him in a supporting role in the classic film noir Touch of Evil (1958). Acting alongside Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Maltese actor Joseph Calleia Weaver played the motel manager in which he nervously repeated: “I’m the night man.” Weaver would also appear in Robert Montgomery’s production of The Gallant Hours (1960), alongside James Cagney. Throughout Gunsmoke’s run, Weaver was worried about the dangers of being typecast as he wanted to diversify in television and film. He finally left Gunsmoke in early 1964, by which time he was earning $7,000 a week and had appeared in more than 230 episodes.

Later in 1964 he appeared in a new series, Kentucky Jones, starring as a veterinarian and horse trainer who adopts a Chinese orphan, but the show lasted only six months. Another series that was short-lived was Gentle Ben (1967) about a ranger in the Everglades who befriends a black bear.

It wasn’t until the series McCloud (1970) made its debut on the small screen that the actor regained his fame. Weaver played a federal marshal from New Mexico, who while working on a case travels to New York. Sporting a cowboy hat and a sheepskin coat he soon finds himself a fish out of water among the more refined, sophisticated habits of the big city. The cultural clash was inspired by Clint Eastwood’s character in Coogan’s Bluff; Weaver would emulate Gunsmoke, with another comical southern accented one-liner: “There you go”.

Thanks to the McCloud series’ successful run Weaver gained a lot of popularity, even becoming the President of the Screen Actors Guild, the American performers union, but it was a yet unknown Steven Spielberg that really launched him on the big screen, with the lead role in the chilling Hitchcockian thriller Duel. The film is hailed as a classic, due to its thrilling chases in open roads and one of the most unforgettable camera shots in an opening scene, capturing in a brilliant manner, the rear of a car leaving the garage. Weaver played a travelling salesman, who is pursued and terrorised by an unknown assailant driving a huge lorry.

Duel was a huge success for Weaver and introduced Spielberg to the film industry paving the way for things to come. The film was without a doubt, the catalyst which spawned the demonic car concept as seen in Steven King’s Christine, The Car, Maximum Overdrive and Joy Ride.

Weaver followed his success in The Great Man’s Whiskers playing Abraham Lincoln and the western A Man Called Sledge. He would also be in demand as a regular guest star on television dramas such as when he played the trail boss R.J. Poteet in the miniseries Centennial (1978). If playing Lincoln was not enough Weaver played Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned for involvement in the Lincoln assassination, in The Ordeal Of Doctor Mudd (1980). Two notable performances were in Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction (1983) where he played a real estate agent addicted to the lethal drug and Bluffing It, in which he played a man who is illiterate.

Besides acting Weaver also recorded several albums of Country and Western songs; he even visited the United Kingdom to play in the acclaimed annual country music festival held at Wembley stadium.

In 1981, his popularity in television westerns finally paid off when Weaver was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The Simpsons’ success in 2002 bestowed upon Weaver the opportunity to play an animated cowboy, Buck McCoy and for his contribution to the television industry, Dennis Weaver was also given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2001 he published an autobiography, entitled quoting the infamous Shakespearean anecdote: All the World’s a Stage.

A staunch vegetarian since 1958, Weaver was also renowned as an outspoken environmentalist. Having been involved in John Denver’s Windstar Foundation, he founded the Institute of Ecolonomics (derived from “ecology” and “economics”) to seek solutions to economic and environmental problems. Speaking at the United Nations as well as to university students and schoolchildren, Weaver promoted through educational campaigns alternate energy fuels e.g. wind and hydrogen. His passion for environmentalism went to the extent that he and his wife Gerry Stowell even constructed their personal home in Colorado into an “earth ship”, a solar-powered house made from recycled tyres and tin cans.

In 2004 Weaver led a fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles across the United States to raise awareness about the country’s dependence on oil and the need to fight pollution. Little did he know how vital this would be in the light of ever-increasing global warming.

Dennis Weaver passed away on 24 February, 2006.