Googie Withers

Withers was made Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2002. In 1991 Curtis died in his sleep of natural causes in Fresno, California. Withers' most recent screen performance was as the music teacher in the film Shine (1996) for which she and the other cast members were nominated for a Screen Actors Guild for "Outstanding Performance By A Cast". His last role was as cattle rancher "Seaborn Tay" in the TV production Conagher (1991), by famed Western author Louis L'Amour, starring Sam Elliot in the lead role. They are the parents of the actors Nicholas McCallum and Joanna McCallum. Inducted (as a cast member of "Gunsmoke") into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1981. Married to Australian actor John McCallum since 1948, the couple met on a film set in Britain, and returned to Australia where both worked frequently in television together and appeared in a number of stage productions. Cedar Jack, who lived about 40 miles out of town in the hills, made a living cutting cedar fence posts, gave Curtis plenty of opportunity to observe him when Jack would come to Las Animas where he would usually end up drunk and in jail.

Throughout her career she has appeared frequently in film, television, and theater. Festus is patterned after “Cedar Jack”, a man from Ken’s Las Animas childhood. Among her successes of the 1940s was One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942), a topical World War II drama in which she played a resistance fighter who helps British airmen return to safety from behind enemy lines. Ken is best known for his long-running role as Festus Hagen, the scrofulous, cantankerous deputy in the TV series Gunsmoke. Her best known work of the period was as one of Margaret Lockwood's friends in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). In the 1950's Curtis even tried his hand at producing with two extremely low-budget monster films, The Killer Shrews and The Giant Gila Monster. During the 1930s she was constantly in demand in lead roles in minor films and supporting roles in more prestigious productions. Curtis also teamed up with Ford, along with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, and William Powell in the comedy Navy classic Mister Roberts.

She arrived on the set to find one of the major players in the production had been dismissed, and she was immediately asked to step into the role. This son-in-law of director John Ford teamed up with father-in-law and also John Wayne in Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, The Searchers, The Horse Soldiers, and How The West Was Won. She was a dancer in a West End production when she was offered work as a film extra. Ken Curtis, who was a singer before he moved into acting, sang with the Sons of the Pioneers and Tommy Dorsey's band. Movie audiences will hear his voice from the introduction of the western standard: "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". Born Georgette Lizette Withers she began acting at the age of 12. The family lived above the jail and his mother, Nellie (Sneed) Gates, cooked for the prisoners. Googie Withers (born March 12, 1917 in Karachi, Pakistan) is a British actress. Dan Gates, his father, was the sheriff in Las Animas.

Curtis Wain Gates and raised in Las Animas, Colorado). (b. Ken Curtis (July 2, 1916 - April 29, 1991), Singer-Actor, best known as "Festus" of Gunsmoke fame.