Gunsmoke Gunsmoke Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. When aired in the UK, the television series was initially titled Gun Law, later reverting to "Gunsmoke". The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, ""Gunsmoke" is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind
Matt Dillon Award for Best Spoken Word Album for narrating Jack Kerouac's "On the Road". In 2015, he has starred in the first season of the FOX television series "Wayward Pines", for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award. Dillon was born in New Rochelle, New York, to Mary Ellen, a homemaker, and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a toy bear manufacturer. His paternal grandmother was the sister of comic strip artist Alex Raymond, the creator of "Flash Gordon". Dillon is the second of six children with one sister and four brothers, one of whom