Ken Curtis

Ken Curtis

actor, producer, soundtrack

Ken Curtis was born on Jul 02, 1916 in USA. Ken Curtis's big-screen debut came with Rhythm Round-Up directed by Vernon Keays in 1945, strarring Jimmy Benson. Ken Curtis is known for Conagher directed by Reynaldo Villalobos, Sam Elliott stars as Conn Conagher and Katharine Ross as Evie Teale. Ken Curtis has got 1 awards and 1 nominations so far. The most recent award Ken Curtis achieved is Western Heritage Awards. The upcoming new movie Ken Curtis plays is Conagher which will be released on Jul 01, 1991.

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). Curtis branched out into film production in the 1950s with two extremely low-budget monster films, Les Musaraignes tueuses (1959) and The Giant Gila Monster (1959), but he is best known for his long-running role as Festus Hagen, the scruffy, cantankerous deputy in the long-running TV series Gunsmoke (1955).

  • Birthday

    Jul 02, 1916
  • Place of Birth

    Lamar, Colorado, USA

Known For

Awards

1 wins & 1 nominations

Western Heritage Awards
1967
Fictional Television Drama
Winner - Bronze Wrangler

Movies & TV Shows

All
Movies
TV Shows