Actor Dennis Weaver Dies In Colorado - The Denver Post

Dennis Weaver, the actor best known for his roles in TV westerns and as an environmental activist, died Friday at his home in Ridgway. He was 81.

Weaver died from complications from cancer, according to his publicist Julian Myers. He and his wife, Gerry, lived in the Earthship home they built in the Western Slope town in 1990.

Weaver’s initial fame came from his role as the laconic Chester Goode, the deputy to James Arness’ Marshall Matt Dillon on “Gunsmoke,” the hit CBS show that started its 20-year run in 1955. He supposedly gave the character a limp so he would be noticed next to the imposing 6-foot-7 Arness.

Burt Reynolds, who appeared in “Gunsmoke” episodes, said today that Weaver was “a wonderful man and a fine actor and we will all miss him.”

He earned an Emmy for the role in 1959, then left after seven seasons. He returned to the program on a limited basis after other projects did not work out, leaving for good in 1964.

He donned a cowboy hat again in “McCloud” on NBC from 1970-77. As a deputy marshal from Taos, he solved crimes on the streets of New York City employing his quintessentially western tactics, including charging through city streets on horseback. He once called it “the most satisfying role of my career.”

“Gentle Ben,” an earlier series for CBS about a family that adopts a bear, lasted two seasons. Most recently, he had a recurring role in the ABC Family show “Wildfire.” He also hosted Encore Westerns for the Englewood-based Starz Entertainment Group.

Weaver had roles in numerous films, including “Touch of Evil,” the film noir classic directed by Orson Welles. He also appears, virtually alone, as a terrorized motorist chased by an unseen truck driver in “Duel,” the first film directed by a then 23-year-old Steven Spielberg. The 1971 made-for-TV movie later received a theatrical release.

Weaver seemed to take his greatest satisfaction not on the screen but in his role an evironmental and hunger activist. He was co-founded Love Is Feeding Everyone (LIFE), a program to feed the hungry in Los Angeles. He also founded the Institute of Ecolonomics, which sought solutions to economic and environmental problems, and spoke to everyone from the United Nation to schoolchildren about fighting pollution.

His most visible environmental project was the Earthship home that he and his wife built in Ridgway and where they had lived for many years. The 8,500-square-foot home – the subject of an Empire magazine piece in The Denver Post in 1990 – featured walls built of tires packed with earth and cans and then covered with adobe. Using an array of active and passive solar technology, water recovery and other recycling techniques, Weaver called it “not a house that you have to take care of. Rather it will take care of you.”

In the past 16 years, numerous other Colorado homes have employed such building techniques.

Weaver was born in Joplin, Mo. He served as a Navy pilot in World War II and attended the University of Oklahoma where he was a track and field star. He placed sixth in the decathalon in the 1948 U.S. Olympic Trials in which Bob Mathias placed first; Weaver won the 1500-meter race in the competition.

His acting career started in New York where he had roles on Broadway and enrolled in the Actor’s Studio. After help from Shelley Winters got him a contract with Universal Studios, he moved to Los Angeles but had little work before landing the role of Chester in “Gunsmoke.”

Weaver is survived by his wife; sons Rick, Robby and Rusty; and three grandchildren.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Staff writer Edward P. Smith can be contacted 303-820-1767 or at [email protected].