Who from Gunsmoke is still alive? Only one main cast member is left
Gunsmoke wrapped its 20-season run more than 50 years ago, so the sad math was always going to catch up eventually. As of mid-2026, it finally has.
The short answer
Buck Taylor — who played gunsmith-turned-deputy Newly O'Brien — is the last surviving member of the Gunsmoke main cast. He turned 88 on May 13, 2026. He became the final one standing when Roger Ewing, who played Deputy Thad Greenwood, died on December 18, 2025, at age 83 in Morro Bay, California.
Who we've lost
The rest of Dodge City's regulars are all gone:
- James Arness (Marshal Matt Dillon) — died in 2011 at 88, after playing Dillon in all 635 episodes plus five TV movies.
- Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) — died in 1989.
- Milburn Stone (Doc Adams) — died in 1980, five years after the show ended.
- Dennis Weaver (Chester) — died in 2006.
- Ken Curtis (Festus) — died in 1991.
- Burt Reynolds (Quint Asper) — died in 2018 at 82.
- Roger Ewing (Thad Greenwood) — died in December 2025, the most recent loss.
What Buck Taylor has been up to
Plenty. Taylor joined Gunsmoke in season 13 and appeared in 173 episodes through the 1975 finale, then returned for the 1987 TV movie Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge — where Newly had been promoted to marshal of Dodge City. Nice career move.
Younger viewers know him too, even if they don't realize it. He played "Turkey Creek" Jack Johnson in Tombstone (1993), appeared in Hell or High Water (2016), and had a run as Emmett Walsh on Yellowstone from 2018 to 2020.
Away from acting, he's a working painter — he's been selling his watercolors of cowboys, horses, and Western scenes since 1993, and still shows up at events like the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo.
For the record: his real name is Walter Clarence Taylor III. He got the nickname "Buck" as a baby — he weighed nine pounds at birth and, according to family legend, looked like a big buck.