Amanda Blake Biography

Fast Facts

• Spent the last years of her life working with the organization Performing Animal Welfare Society, to which she left her estate
• Received the American Cancer Society's Courage Award in 1984, which was presented to her by President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office
• Was inducted into the Great Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 1968, the third performer to be honored after Tom Mix and Gary Cooper
• After three years at MGM and Columbia, she got her first television role in an episode of "Fireside Theater" in 1953
• Started out as a glamour girl for MGM Studios while trying to get a role in a Noel Coward comedy
• Best known for her role as Miss Kitty Russell in the 1955 TV series "Gunsmoke․"
• Her and her third husband, Frank Gilbert, ran an experimental breeding program for cheetahs, and they were one of the first to successfully breed cheetahs in captivity