Everyone has a Gunsmoke story. Almost every major actor today who started out playing small roles on TV from the 1950s to the 1970s has one. This includes doctors, lawyers, salespeople, business executives, writers, directors and the guy who owned the old corner grocery store or worked construction in the post-World-War-II housing boom. If you grew up or were an adult in the two decades when Gunsmoke was on the air, from 1955 to 1975, you had a Gunsmoke story. There were a lot of Westerns on TV in those days—some popular, and others fleeting but memorable. But none was as enduring as Gunsmoke and its stories of U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon and Dodge City, Kansas.
The show first aired on September 10, 1955, and the 30-minute, black-and-white series was…