Breaking news on CNN Dennis Weaver has died from cancer. http://www.cnn.com/offbeat/?eref=yahoo/
Well, there’s our three-fer…
Funny how that goes. 
Bad weekend; Don Knotts, Darin McGavin and now Dennis Weaver.
Like flies, they’re dropping! I never felt right about Dennis Weaver after I saw that TV movie where he was beating the hell out of wife Sally Fields every five seconds. I know it’s was just a show though, so RIP.
Thanks for the updated link.
Anybody else “hear” the song Dream Weaver whenever they hear the name Dennis Weaver?
RIP.
No…but I will now!
Guess he’s up in the McClouds now.
Duel at Diablo where he abused Bibi Andersson .
A versitle actor to play that guy and Chester. 
I guess he’s the night manager in heaven now.
The first non-Chester thing I saw him in was one of Spielberg’s earliest features: Duel. It was to trucks what Psycho was to showers. Sad thing is we had a Plymouth Valiant very much like Weaver’s and I had a hard time imagining ours doing those speeds and holding the road as well.
Was he run down by a big, scary truck, by any chance? Wouldn’t that have been ironic!
Stop that.
I’ve got the strangest feeling now, remembering what it was like when you’d watch The Andy Griffith show in the afternoon, Speilberg’s Duel for the ABC Movie Of The Week and then Night Stalker until you were tired enough to retire. These three really defined B television in the 70’s, that not in an altogether bad way either.
Was it a Valient or a Dart? My dad had a '74 Dart Swinger (which wasn’t much different than the '70/'71 that was in the movie) and not long after he got the car, my dad got chased off of an interstate by an angry truck driver!
I wonder if I can get that movie on Amazon…I’ve been wanting to see it again for years.
Now that you ask, I guess I’m not sure. Our 69 Valiant was a sort of goldish color 2-door slant-6 that was virtually indestructible. We called it Ole Yeller. I replaced at least one engine and one transmission and eventually totalled it into the side of a VW Bug that had run a stop sign in the rain.
I never raced any trucks at all.
Hugh Hefner was boffing Dennis Weaver in the backside, when Mick Jagger walked in on them. Jagger shouted, ‘Hey! Hugh! Get off of McCloud!’
I used to like watching McCloud when I was a kid. And Duel is one of my faves.
My dad’s '74 Dart Swinger was a brown metallic color…I saw the name of it a few weeks ago on some paint chips I was looking at when I bought the paint for my Cordoba, but I can’t remember what they called it now. It was a really nice color for brown…it had kindof a gold metallic flake in it.
Anyway, I looked it up on IMDB and it was a Valient and the movie was released in '71. From what I remember of the car from the last time I saw the movie, it had to be a '70 or '71. The Dart and Valient went through subtle changes over the years from '70 to '75…grille, tail lights, bumpers, etc. It was close enough for the car to obviously be a Dart or Valiant but different enough to be able to tell the difference.
Not sure about the Valiants, but:
The '69 Dart had a silver and black grille with blinkers in the grille, horizontal fins in the grille…clear lenses with amber bulbs, round headlights. The taillights were above the bumper, almost square with a horizontal chrome divider across the middle.
The '70 Dart had a black grille with vertical fins and a vertical divider in the middle, blinkers in the grille. The rectangular taillights were in the bumper and had reverse lights all in one unit.
The '71 Dart had pretty much the same grille, but the taillights in the bumper were two separate units on each side, the ones closer to the middle were a red reflector with a reverse light in the center.
The '72 Dart had a horizontal finned grille with a horizontal chrome divider in the middle. The front blinkers were square. The rear was pretty much the same as a '71.
The '73 Dart had both horizontal and vertical fins in the grille forming small rectangles, rectangular blinkers, and this was the first year that the hood didn’t overlap the grille. The front of the header panel came to a point in the front, as did the grille. There were double taillights on each side like the '71/'72, but the lights were square rather than rectangular.
The '74 had the same front end as the '73, but the rear end went back to the taillights above the bumper, double on each side, but one unit with a chrome trim around the lights and they wrapped around the side of the car.
The '75 and '76 were mostly the same as the '74, but some of these had a hood ornament on the header panel.
The Valiants were mostly the same with different trim levels.
I just ordered the Duel Collector’s edition DVD off of Amazon!
Weaver was an interesting character in his own right. He was New Age long before it was fashionable and headed a small church-like group that discussed reincarnation, astral projection, vegetarianism, etc… His house, which looked more or less like a regular home, was made of recycled jugs and tires and other items from landfills to reflect his conservation views. I understand to honor his witnesses he will be buried in a coffin made from a giant milk jug (or maybe I made the last part up).
He had one of the longest lasting marriages in show business (61 years).
I always enjoyed his ancedotes on the western channel, usually before the Randolph Scott movie.He seemed a very down to earth guy