Saturday 31 December 2011

Brothers

Further to my 1947-squee, I just found a wartime photo of Peter Graves and James Arness (i.e. Peter and James Aurness) together in uniform, so this seems a good time to post the few photos I have of them together. I'm intrigued by James Arness. I don't find him attractive, but Wikipedia makes him sound pretty interesting, especially his wartime service record. They're putting Gunsmoke on tv here pretty soon, so I might watch that and see what my brain does to me...

Anyhow, on to the photos. (please slap me if this blog starts to seem stalkery - I'm not stalkery, just mildly obsessive.) [EDIT: I just found a few more photos in James Arness's autobiography. I want to read this book. It looks interesting! Oh god, I am a stalker... (edit again - and so, I bought the Kindle edition. Damn.]

This is as early as they get, when Peter's mother was probably pregnant. Aside from anything else, this is just a beautiful photo. I love photos of this era. Her clothes, her hair, the graceful curve of her arm (reminds me a little of Modigliani paintings), and she is just so beautiful. Sigh...

This one is quite squeesome. Little Peter and his aeroplane are exceptionally cute.


Young Peter and James. I'm not so stalkery that I find teenage boys in swimming trunks attractive, but it is interesting.
Wartime photo, apparently of autumn 1944, while James is recovering from his foot injury. And now Peter is old enough that I can find him attractive. Hot damn... And that's not a phrase I've used before. I also love this because this is just how he would look playing the character of Ed in the book I've just written.


Peter directing Gunsmoke. He was about to be contracted to direct more when he was called up for the IMF. How I would love to see the episode with director's commentary!

Peter, James - and I'm assuming this is their dad. Aww :-)
This blog has some stuff on what may or may not have been their childhood home - the comments are more illuminating than the article!

7 comments:

  1. I think I love you. I can't believe I just found this blog.

    No. You're not Stalky McCrazypants. Fan girly-ness is a harmless reality break and is actually a self-soothing behavior. It's a place to go to in times of stress or to relax before sleep.

    There is a growing fan base for Peter Graves because of Netflix streaming M:I. I loved him long before then, of course. I bought M:I DVDs for my Leonard Nimoy fix then was all like, "Hmmm. Peter Graves has a sexy walk. Wait. Peter Graves comes through doors one shoulder at a time. He's 6'3"?! Look at that mouth! Those eyes. Those lashes! Those beautiful hands. And is there a man in this world who looks better in a uniform with knee boots?" I could go on.

    After he passed away, I started watching Gunsmoke out of grief, I guess. I knew James Arness was still alive and it was just a weird way to "connect" to Peter Graves(which actually might be a little cray cray). Ok. Whoa. Aside from being an extraordinarily well-written and progressive (and violent) show for it's time, after the first episode of Gunsmoke I saw, I was like, "I want Marshal Dillon to beat up everyone and protect me form everything."

    I am currently obsessed with both of the Aurness boys and stumbled upon your site trawling for pictures of Peter Graves for a new blog post.

    Please keep posting. There are lots of us out here.

    P.S. I got a death threat from this insane woman in England regarding some fan fic I wrote. She wanted me to stop talking about her husband Peter Graves and when he returned from his trip to Hawaii, they would come kill me. So, there's our perspective on what's crazy!

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    1. Oh, I'm glad you discovered it! I've been an admirer of your blog since I read your Mission Impossible fic on there.

      I will do my best to keep posting. I'm rather deep in the middle of a Route 66 obsession right now, but Peter is beautiful as always to me. I intend to do some screencapping of the Peter Graves episodes of that series soon (it was my love for him that led me to buy the series.)

      I think I know the very insane person you're talking about. I tend to call her 'batshit crazy girl.' ;-)

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    2. Oh, hey, I've just discovered a lovely threatening letter from the same person in my facebook inbox, from about a year ago. It's nice to know I wasn't left out ;-)

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  2. Thanks guys the years were awesome.

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  3. Nice pictures of the Aurness brothers. I recently found out that Peter had a "This is Your Life" honor. I didn't see any footage of it, but I learned that James wasn't on there. Their parents, Peter's wife, his kids, Greg Morris and high school friends appeared but no James. He appeared via audio. Huh? I don't know what to make of this.

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    1. I'd love to see that This Is Your Life. I've seen a photo from it, but that's it. I suppose it might just not have worked out so that James could be there. There are plenty of things trying to make out there was a rift between then, but the non-sensationalised things always imply they were close.

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