Five years before he saved the galaxy as Han Solo in “Star Wars,” Harrison Ford was slinging pistols in the CBS Western “Gunsmoke,” one of the long-running shows on American TV. An absolute juggernaut during its 20-season run from 1955 to 1975, the show followed the exploits of the honorable U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) as he kept the peace in rough-and-tumble Dodge City. During the fledgling days of his career, Ford — who isn’t the only major star to have appeared in “Gunsmoke” — booked two separate roles on the series within the same season, playing two completely different characters just nine weeks apart.
Ford first popped up in Season 18, Episode 11, “The Sodbusters.” In this episode, he played Print, a drunken hired gun working for a trigger-happy cattle rancher named Lamoor Underwood (Morgan Woodward). Underwood is dead set on snatching away water rights from a local farming family, escalating a violent feud that eventually pulls in Marshal Dillon. While Print spends most of his time lurking in the background, he gets a dramatic send-off during the final shootout: Perched on a balcony, Print tries to get the drop on a rival, only for Dillon to spot him and shoot him dead.
But being gunned down by James Arness didn’t keep Ford away for long. In Episode 20, “Whelan’s Men,” he made an even stronger impression as the rugged outlaw Hobey, a member of a ruthless gang that takes over Dodge City while waiting to settle a score with an absent Dillon. In this episode of the genre-defining Western, Ford’s big moment comes when Hobey executes a fellow gang member for cheating at poker.
Harrison Ford says he lost some teeth while filming Gunsmoke
While Ford no doubt put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into his performances on “Gunsmoke,” he also came out with fewer teeth — specifically, after shooting “The Sodbusters.” “I was shooting out the window and I turned and saw the sheriff and shots were exchanged,” Ford told podcast host Terry Gross during an episode of NPR’s “Fresh Air.” “And what happened was, as I fell to the ground wounded, the gun dropped and then bounced up and hit me in the teeth and knocked out several of my teeth right in the front of my mouth.”
Despite some repair work from the studio’s onsite dentist, Ford’s teeth started “falling apart” two months later, by which time the dentist who’d worked on him had left the practice. “His partner confessed he had no knowledge of where he’d gone,” shared Ford. “So I was stuck with teeth that were falling out of my mouth and I had to pay for my own replacements.” Thankfully, Ford soon booked the projects that would help him pay off those dental bills. After leaving Dodge City, he landed a role in George Lucas’ 1973 classic “American Graffiti,” which paved the way for his career-defining performance as Han Solo in “Star Wars.”
