5 Star Trek: The Original Series Actors Who Appeared On Gunsmoke

The crew of the starship Enterprise explored the final frontier — but many "Star Trek" actors also appeared in a show about another one: the Wild West. The CBS Western "Gunsmoke" had plenty of guest actors come through its swinging saloon doors, the "Trek" cast included.

"Gunsmoke" premiered on September 10, 1955, and it wouldn't end until two decades later, with the 635th and final episode airing on March 31, 1975. For a long time, "Gunsmoke" held the record as the single longest-running scripted primetime show in American TV history — until "The Simpsons" surpassed it in 2018. Other series, such as "Law & Order," have since bumped it down further down the rankings.

Still, that's a lot of episodes across a wide swath of time, so it shouldn't be too surprising that so many "Star Trek" actors found their way to Dodge City. And while these are five of the biggest "TOS" actors to have also appeared on "Gunsmoke," they're by no means the only ones. William Bramley (a policeman in "Bread and Circuses"), Harry Townes (Reger in "The Return of the Archons"), Jon Kowal (Herm Gossett in "Mudd's Women"), and K.L. Smith (a Klingon captain in "Elaan of Troyius") also acted in both shows, though TV audiences probably wouldn't recognize them as easily as they would these "Trek" stars.

William Shatner appeared in a Season 12 episode of "Gunsmoke" that aired in December of 1966, a couple months after "Star Trek" debuted on NBC. In the episode, "Quaker Girl," Shatner plays Fred Bateman, a criminal on the run from Roger Ewing's Deputy Marshal Thad Greenwood.

In an interview with PBS, Shatner recalled how he feared for his life during the shooting of the episode because another actor started strangling him as part of a fight scene. Shatner couldn't remember the other actor's name – though it could have been Timothy Carey, an actor who also appeared in the episode in question. "In my closeup, he grabbed a hold of my throat and started to throttle me," Shatner said. "I'm supposed to be the hero, so I don't want to turn around and say 'Stop that!' That isn't heroic." Shatner said that his "judo training" came in handy as he stomped on his attacker's foot and hit him with his elbow, performing what he called "a series of non-technical, hysterical moves that usually work in films but rarely work in real life" in order to escape.

One of Leonard Nimoy's last TV appearances before he made his debut as Spock in "Star Trek" was in an April 1966 episode of "Gunsmoke." As Nimoy recalled in an interview with PBS, he had already filmed the two "Star Trek" pilots and was waiting to see if the show would go to series when he landed his part in "Gunsmoke." By the time they started shooting the episode, he'd learned that "Star Trek" was indeed moving ahead. "So I was really feeling good," he recalled. "I've got a steady job coming."

Nimoy appears in the titular role in the "Gunsmoke" episode "Treasure of John Walking Fox." This one hasn't aged very well, however, because, regrettably, Nimoy is in redface for the part. He plays the title character, a Native American man who seeks revenge after his friend is murdered.

Casting non-Native actors and putting them in makeup was a common practice in Hollywood until all too recently. This wasn't even the first time Nimoy had played a Native American — though, as he told PBS, it was "the most important Indian role" he'd ever been given. He also compared John Walking Fox's cleverness to the way Spock behaved on "Trek."

James Doohan is best known for the Scottish accent he affected when he played the Enterprise's engineer, Montgomery Scott – but he had no such accent when he appeared on "Gunsmoke" a few years before "Star Trek" premiered.

In the Season 8 episode "Quint Asper Comes Home," which aired on September 29, 1962, Doohan plays one of two would-be prospectors who come across a cabin and try to shake down the inhabitants for any gold they might have. Upon finding out that the man living there is married to a Native American woman, the pair become aggressive. This leads to a confrontation that ends when the man's half-Native son, Quint Asper, returns home and attacks Doohan and his partner with an axe.

Though "Trek" fans will no doubt be pleased to spot Doohan, the episode is more notable for featuring another actor who would go on to be a major star: Burt Reynolds, who claimed Cherokee heritage on his father's side, played the title character in "Quint Asper Comes Home." He would reprise the role for a total of 50 "Gunsmoke" episodes.

DeForest Kelley, the actor who played Leonard "Bones" McCoy on "Star Trek", appeared in the first season of "Gunsmoke" in 1956, a decade before he played the USS Enterprise's cantankerous doctor.

In the episode "Indian Scout," Kelley plays Will Bailey, a man who sets out for revenge after his cavalryman brother is killed in an attack by Native Americans. He especially blames Amos Cartwright, an old Native scout (Eduard Franz), as he believes Amos deliberately led the patrol to their deaths. Before Bailey can gather a posse to hunt him down, however, Amos acts first, killing Bailey before going on the run himself.

Kelley sports a pretty incredible beard in his "Gunsmoke" appearance. If he had rocked the facial hair in "Star Trek," it would have made the beard that Jonathan Frakes grew for Season 2 of "The Next Generation" look like mere stubble by comparison.

Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei — the other main members of the "Star Trek" cast — never made appearances on "Gunsmoke." But one of the greatest villains the Enterprise crew ever faced did.

Ricardo Montalban, famous for playing Khan Noonien Singh in both the Season 1 "TOS" episode "Space Seed" and the 1982 feature film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," starred in an episode of "Gunsmoke" in 1970. In the Season 16 episode "Chato," Montalban plays the title character, a half-Native American outlaw and a crack shot. After Chato kills one of his friends, U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) heads into the New Mexico mountains to track him down. However, when a woman is shot by a different group of bandits who interfere with Chato and Dillon's duel, Chato calls a truce so they can try to get her medical attention.

Not counting "Star Trek," Montalban's biggest TV role came a few years after "Gunsmoke," when he made his debut as the mysterious Mr. Roarke on the ABC series "Fantasy Island."