Where To Watch
8 fascinating things you never knew about Dennis Weaver
The man behind Chester was also a skilled athlete and meditation guru.
Image: The Everett Collection
From Chester to McCloud, the Dennis Weaver had a knack for playing atypical lawmen. Chester walked with a limp and talked with a reedy accent. McCloud was a fish-out-of-water cowboy in the Big Apple.
In between, Weaver starred on the boy-and-his-bear drama Gentle Ben. You could also find him on everything from The Twilight Zone and Magnum, P.I. He played a major part in the development of Steven Spielberg's career, starring in the gripping 1971 chase film Duel. His skill at playing an "everyman" belied the fact that he was an accomplished athlete and singer. His life away from the camera was rather extraordinary.
Let's take a closer look at Weaver's life and career.
1. He nearly made the 1948 Olympic team.
Born and raised in southwest Missouri, Weaver was a football star at Joplin High School, played basketball for Joplin Junior College, and eventually became a track star the University of Oklahoma. He represented the Sooners at the 1948 Olympic trials. He placed sixth in the decathlon. Alas, only the top three made Team USA and traveled to London.
Image: The Everett Collection
2. He was delivering flowers and selling pantyhose when he got the Gunsmoke gig.
In Los Angeles, you have to do whatever it takes until you make it. Many wait tables. Weaver sold pantyhose and delivered flowers. He was making $60 a week. Landing the part of Chester bumped him up to $300.
Image: The Everett Collection
3. He based Chester on a kid he knew in college.
Weaver nearly flubbed his audition for Gunsmoke. He found Chester to be too silly on page, so he performed the lines straight. The casting folks were not impressed. He then quickly asked for a do-over. For his second try, Weaver put on a sillier voice. "I remember at the University of Oklahoma there was a kid from Okarche [Oklahoma]… he had such a thick accent you could hardly understand him," Weaver fondly recalled in an interview with TV Legends. "I used to imitate him at parties." Weaver asked the producers, "I think you know what you mean, will you give me another chance?" He then slipped into his party-parody voice and won the part — and got stuck doing the voice for years as Chester.
Image: AP Photo
4. He toured in a singing trio with Milburn Stone and Amanda Blake.
The three Gunsmoke stars teamed up to perform at rodeos in the late 1950s. The actors set an attendance record for the Albuquerque Arena at the New Mexico State Fair in 1960. In the 1970s, Weaver recorded a series of albums that played off his McCloud persona and tapped into his country roots.
Image: The Everett Collection
5. He was a meditation guru.
Weaver was an active member and de facto preacher at the Self-Realization Fellowship's Temple of the Lake Shrine in Los Angeles. The SRF disciple would deliver sermons on the faith. He would speak on topics such as "Habits: Your Master or Your Slave?" He had a specially designed meditation chamber built in his California home. He even drove an orange BMW with vanity license plates reading "GURU JI," according to a People profile in 1975.
Image: The Everett Collection
6. Spielberg wanted to cast him because of an Orson Welles movie.
One of Weaver's greatest performances came in Duel, the 1971 feature film debut by Steven Spielberg. "I had always been a fan of Dennis Weaver, because he played the night watchman in Touch of Evil," Spielberg is quoted as saying in the book Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career. "I probably wouldn't have thought of Dennis Weaver, had it not been for Touch of Evil." Weaver had rave reviews for the budding young director. "He was absolutely everything they said that he was, and even more."
Image: The Everett Collection
7. He lived in a house made of recycled tires and cans.
Later in life, Weaver and his wife built a unique home in Ridgway, Colorado. It was one of the trademark "Earthships" designed by Michael Reynolds. There are an estimated 1,000 "Earthships" in existence around the world, ranging from the multi-million dollar luxury home of actor Weaver to village housing in Bolivia. A New Mexico model is seen here. Weaver's house was made out of recycled car tires and metal cans. Weaver wrote in his memoir, "When you build a house out of cans and used automobile tires, it gets a lot of attention."
Image: AP Photo / Eric Draper
8. He died on on the same day as Don Knotts, at the same age.
February 24, 2006, was a sad day for television. Both Weaver and Knotts passed away at the age of 81. The two icons were born close together, as well, weeks apart from one another in 1924.
Image: The Everett Collection
53 Comments
Didn't really care for him as Chester or McCloud. Duel was OK.
The stunt man in harness missed his cue to replace Dennis in the shot.
Then with cameras rolling while Dennis waited holding the skid, the pilot lifted off with Dennis
in one quick swoop, off into the NYC skies.
That's him hanging on for dear life, luckily he was in superb condition though I suspect the
same couldn't be said for his drawers afterwards.
The McCloud opening is on YouTube, I recommend everyone go look, because knowing
he is literally hanging on over NYC, no harness, it is chilling. He had to hang on when the chopper lifted otherwise he would have gone over the side of the skyscraper.
This must be the 2nd greatest stunt in history, after the infamous Gregory Peck episode in
the movie Moby Dick, now that's scary!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkvS8XLc874
On second thought, maybe that's best forgotten.