Why did Matt Dillon limp on Gunsmoke? James Arness wore a lift in one shoe for the rest of his life after 1944

The limp belonged to the actor, not the marshal. James Arness was shot through the lower right leg in Italy in 1944, came home with one leg shorter than the other and wore a lift in his shoe for the rest of his life.

James Arness played Marshal Matt Dillon on CBS's Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1975, then returned to the role for Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge in 1987 and four more TV movies in the 1990s. At six-foot-six, he was one of the most physically imposing leading men on television. The slightly uneven gait viewers noticed, especially when Dillon ran, was the result of a war wound.

What happened at Anzio

Arness was a freshman at Beloit College in Wisconsin when he was drafted into the Army in 1943. He was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division and took part in the Allied landing at Anzio, Italy, in early 1944. Here's what followed:

• The wound — about ten days after the landing, Arness was walking point on a night patrol through a vineyard when he walked into a German machine-gun nest. The rounds splintered the bones of his lower right leg and also injured his foot.
• The recovery — he spent close to a year in hospitals and went through multiple surgeries.
• The discharge — he was honorably discharged in January 1945 with a disability pension of $56 a month.
• The lift — the injury left his right leg about five-eighths of an inch shorter than his left, and from then on he wore a lift in his shoe to compensate.

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The injury never fully stopped hurting. Arness dealt with chronic leg pain for the rest of his life, and it often became acute when he was in the saddle for Gunsmoke, a show that put him on horseback for two decades.

How he got the part

Arness came out of the Army, worked in radio in his native Minnesota and moved to Hollywood looking for film work. His friendship with John Wayne turned into the job of a lifetime. A popular legend says Wayne turned down Matt Dillon and recommended Arness instead. What's documented is that Wayne appeared in a filmed prologue to the first episode in 1955, introducing Arness to the audience.

Arness reportedly liked it when Gunsmoke's camera found ways to make his height less obvious. The limp was the one thing about his body the camera couldn't do anything about.

The other limp in Dodge City

Some of the confusion about Dillon's limp comes from the fact that Gunsmoke had a famous limp already. Dennis Weaver's Chester Goode, Dillon's deputy in the early seasons, walked with an exaggerated stiff leg that became the character's trademark. Chester's limp belonged to the character. Dillon's belonged to the man playing him.

Arness rarely gave interviews. He died on June 3, 2011, at 88, having played Matt Dillon across five decades on a leg that had been rebuilt in an Army hospital before his acting career began.

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