Gunsmoke: what happened to Sam? Viewers kept seeing him for months after the actor was gone
Sam Noonan poured drinks at the Long Branch Saloon for twelve years and 222 episodes. He never got a farewell scene, a written exit, or a mention of where he'd gone. The explanation isn't in the scripts. It's in the production schedule.
Glenn Strange, who played Sam, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1972 and worked until he physically couldn't. He died on September 20, 1973, at age 74. Five Gunsmoke episodes he'd already filmed were still in the pipeline, so Sam kept appearing on CBS for another two months. His last one aired November 26, 1973.
How Strange got the job in the first place
He wasn't cast as a regular. Strange visited the Gunsmoke set with James Arness — Arness had asked him when he was going to do an episode, saying he liked working with big guys — and Strange asked the producer for something small. He first showed up in 1960 as a Long Branch customer and a cowboy in two separate season 6 episodes, then took over Sam in season 7.
"I thought it was only going to be a day's work," Strange told The Mason Telegraph in 1969.
By then he was starting his ninth year behind the bar.
The timeline
- 1972 — Strange is diagnosed with lung cancer at 73 and keeps filming through treatment.
- Early 1973 — his appearances thin out; he steps away with several episodes already shot.
- September 20, 1973 — Strange dies in Los Angeles. Western singer Eddie Dean performs at his funeral.
- September–November 1973 — five completed episodes air, Sam still tending bar.
- November 26, 1973 — "The Hanging of Newly O'Brien," season 19, episode 11. Sam's last scene closes the episode.
Did anyone replace him?
Yes, quietly. Robert Brubaker moved behind the Long Branch bar as a new character called Floyd for the show's final season, which ran September 1974 to March 1975. Brubaker had been on Gunsmoke since 1957 as stagecoach driver Jim Buck, making him the only actor to hold two recurring roles across the series' twenty seasons. Season 20 also swapped Amanda Blake's Miss Kitty for Fran Ryan as saloon owner Hannah.
Was Sam ever written out?
No. The character simply stops turning up. Dodge City acquired a different bartender and the show moved on.
For the record: before he was the friendliest man in Dodge, Strange played Frankenstein's monster in three Universal pictures — House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Makeup artist Jack Pierce picked him for it after noticing his face and his 6-foot-4 frame while making him up for a different movie entirely.