J.D. Cannon

IMDb: J.D. Cannon (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0134201/). In 1991 Curtis died in his sleep of natural causes in Fresno, California.
. 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. He is probably best known for his costarring role in the television series McCloud, and for his role in Cool Hand Luke. Inducted (as a cast member of "Gunsmoke") into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1981. Cannon (born April 24, 1922 in Salmon, Idaho), is an American actor. 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.

J.D. Festus is patterned after “Cedar Jack”, a man from Ken’s Las Animas childhood. Ken is best known for his long-running role as Festus Hagen, the scrofulous, cantankerous deputy in the TV series Gunsmoke. 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. Curtis also teamed up with Ford, along with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, and William Powell in the comedy Navy classic Mister Roberts.