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PS: James Arness had a bum leg from a previous accident.
Lean Wolf can tell the story from knowing him, but Arness was in full time pain the last couple of years of Gunsmoke. It was from a war injury. During the battle of Anzio, Arness' right leg was peppered with machine gun bullets, and when the bones were set they didn't mend properly, leaving him with a slight but permanent limp. The trauma of the experience mellowed into aimlessness after the war.
I knew Jim, and did one movie with him. His wounds were severe and troubling him greatly. He wore compression undergarments under his pants to help keep the dropsy in both legs under control long enough to shoot a scene. The wounds are what contributed to him getting dropsy.
It wasn't a pretty sight. I saw it and the pain it caused him with my own eyes. He was a friend.
Jim Arness was badly wounded at Anzio, WW II, as mentioned above. Flesh and bones don't do too well when they encounter 8MM bullets from a German machine gun. The last several years of
Gunsmoke, Jim could not ride a horse other than to mount, start to ride away, and the camera would do a cutaway and Jim's stunt double did the rest of the riding. He was a very nice man who survived and prospered in a pool of sharks: Hollywood.
FWIW.
L.W.
