Amanda Blake

Amanda Blake (February 20, 1929 – August 16, 1989) was an American actress best known for the role of the red-haired saloon proprietress "Miss Kitty Russell" on the western television series Gunsmoke. Along with her third husband, Frank Gilbert, she ran one of the first successful programs for breeding cheetahs in captivity. 2Early life and career Amanda Blake was born Beverly Louise Neill in Buffalo, New York, the only child of Jesse and Louise (née Puckett) Neill. Her father was a banker; Blake herself was a telephone operator before she took up acting. Catherine ″Kate" Moore Barry (1752–1823), one of her ancestors, was a heroine of the American Revolutionary War. She warned local patriots of Banastre Tarleton's approach, giving them time to group and prepare for the Battle of Cowpens (January 17, 1781), a major American victory that helped pave the way for the British defeat at Yorktown. Blake placed a cameo-sized portrait of Barry owned by her family in the local history museum in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at which it remains on display. Nicknamed "the Young Greer Garson", she became best known for her 19-year stint as the saloon-keeper Miss Kitty on the television series Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1974. Prior to that, Blake had appeared in a few Hollywood films, such as the 1952 western Cattle Town and in the starring role of Miss Robin Crusoe, a 1954 adaptation of the Robinson Crusoe adventure. In 1968, Blake was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma Cit