Arvo Ojala

Arvo Oswald Ojala (February 21, 1920 – July 1, 2005) was a Hollywood technical advisor on the subject of quick-draw with a revolver.

[1] He also worked as an actor; his most famous role was that of the unnamed man shot by Marshal Matt Dillon in the opening sequences of the long-running television series Gunsmoke.

Born to Finnish immigrant parents[2] as a young man, Ojala taught himself marksmanship and how to quick-draw a handgun while living on his father's ranch near Yakima, Washington.

[4] "I watched these guys in Westerns," he told a reporter in 1957, "and realized that they were slow on the draw because the cylinder of their guns got stuck in their holsters.

At the height of the TV Westerns, Ojala opened a "quick-draw" studio on the 8500 block of the Sunset Strip, next to the famous King's Cellar Liquor Store.

For further proof, Arvo would drop a silver dollar with his gun hand (right) from belt height, then draw and hit the coin before it could fall four inches.