His connection with the SRF as well as other organizations is revealed in the article I cited in post #105:
He served as president of the Screen Actor?s Guild and as Lay Minister of Self Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple.The guy was a flaming liberal, as many other Hollywood and Broadway actors are and have been for generations.
But we can't let that interfere with our enjoyment of their work.
My favorite line of Chester's from "Gunsmoke": "Marshal Dillon, don't underwear smell nice . . when it's clean?"
I remember reading that he was a really good athlete in college
I always liked Dennis Weaver. Sure, he was a liberal, but I can kind of differentiate between the "regular" Hollywood liberals and the horribly offensive ones. A lot of Hollywood performers don't really think all that much about politics. They just go with the liberal flow, register as Democrats and write out checks to leftist candidates. That's not good, but it's not the same level of offensiveness as the Jane Fonda types who go out and trash America and trash the family. Weaver seemed like a nice guy who bought the line that liberals "want to protect the trees and help poor people". I never heard of him denouncing America's military or trashing Christian values or anything like that.
RIP, Mr. Weaver. I enjoyed your performances, from Gunsmoke to Duel to McCloud and beyond.