Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke) no uncertain terms that he had no interest whatsoever. (Wayne was arguably the cinema's foremost box office attraction at the time.) Warren stated that the inquiry had not been serious inasmuch as Wayne could not realistically have been expected to abandon a thriving movie career for a less certain and immensely less lucrative television role. Wayne did, however, recommend James Arness for the part and his offer to introduce the first episode was readily accepted by CBS. Others who had auditioned for the part included Raymond Burr, Richard Boone, Denver Pyle, and William Conrad. All would go on to other
Gunsmoke and any time." The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes. At the end of its run in 1975, "Los Angeles Times" columnist Cecil Smith wrote: ""Gunsmoke" was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own "Iliad" and "Odyssey", created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp Western as romanticized by [Ned] Buntline, [Bret] Harte, and [Mark] Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend." In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a fan of the "Philip Marlowe" radio serial, asked his programming