Long before he became a movie star, a young Kurt Russell appeared on “Gilligan’s Island.” Yes, two years after kicking Elvis in the shin for his first movie role in “It Happened at the World’s Fair,” a 13-year-old Russell played a jungle-dwelling youngster in the season one episode “Gilligan Meets Jungle Boy.”
The burgeoning star actually had quite a prolific small-screen career during the 1960s. Between 1962 to 1965, he appeared in episodes of “Dennis the Menace,” “The Dick Powell Show,” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” to name just a few. But a year prior to his “Gilligan’s Island” appearance, between booting the King of Rock ‘n Roll and playing a tiny Tarzan, Russell also found time to appear in yet another legendary show: “Gunsmoke.”
This beloved Western series started as a radio show in 1952 and ran until 1961. During that time, a TV adaptation was commissioned, and managed to run for even longer than its radio predecessor. Premiering on CBS in 1955, “Gunsmoke” ran for 20 seasons, initially airing as half-hour episodes from 1955 to 1961 before transitioning to hour-long episodes in 1962 until its final episode in 1975. In all, “Gunsmoke” ran for 635 episodes across its 20-year run. But the hour-long episodes in particular allowed the writers to delve deeper into the Kansas frontier town of Dodge City, and provided ample opportunity for young actors to take part in the hit series — one of whom was a 12-year-old Russell.
Source link
