Are you hailing from Sykkylven in Møre og Romsdal, Norway? Well, then you might be related to the great film and television icon that was James Arness – and his younger brother, the TV and film actor Peter Graves.
James Arness got his first film role in the 1947 movie The farmer’s daughter, starring Loretta Young and Joseph Cotton; mainly because he knew how to speak English with a Scandinavian accent.
That James Arness identified as a Norwegian is clear from the very first paragraph of his autobiography: “When my grandfather landed at Ellis Island in 1887, his name was Peter Aursnes“.
James Arness was the grandson of Peder Andreas Olsen Aursnes, born in 1860 at Aursnes in Ørskog Sykkylven, Møre og Romsdal, Norway.
In America, grandfather Peder Aursnes simplified his surname from Aursnes to Aurness. On his way to Hollywood, James took it one step further, and Aurness became Arness.
NRO.A.15.01 | Arness, James – Wise jr, James E. James Arness – an autobiography. McFarland & Company Inc 2001.