Georgia ellis gunsmoke photo

By Ivan G Shreve Jr

Georgia Ellis, the actress who co-starred on what is fondly remembered by legions of old-time radio fans as the definitive Gunsmoke (namely, the radio version), would have celebrated her birthday today.  It was Ellis who first played the part of Kitty Russell, the Long Branch Saloon proprietress made famous by Amanda Blake when the series transitioned to TV for a twenty-year run (though Blake jumped ship from the show before Gunsmoke’s final season).

Georgia was a regular on the radio Gunsmoke right from its debut broadcast on April 26, 1952—but in that first episode (“Billy the Kid”) she was Francie Richards, the widow of an outlaw (and a former flame of Marshal Matt Dillon).  By the series’ third episode, “Jaliscoe” (05/10/52), Ellis was playing Kitty Russell—a dance-hall girl who, it was subtly inferred, did a lot more at the Long Branch than just dance.  In a now-famous interview for Time maga