Charles Marquis Warren was a TV and movie writer, producer, and director known for creating Rawhide, and developing Gunsmoke and The Virginian. He was born on December 16, 1912, in Baltimore, Maryland, and was the godson of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. While attending Baltimore City College, he wrote the play, No Sun, No Moon, and took it to Hollywood. MGM took an option on the play and his godfather helped Warren get a job as a staff writer.

Warren worked on the scripts for Mutiny on the Bounty and Top Hat, then he left the film business to write for pulp magazines. He served in the US Army during World War II, working in the Photo Science Laboratory until he was injured by a Japanese grenade. While recovering, Warren wrote his novel, Only the Valiant, which was purchased by Warner Bros.

Once he was discharged, Warren moved back to Hollywood and started specializing in writing Westerns. Warren wrote Beyond Glory, Streets of Laredo, Oh! Susanna, The Redhead and the Cowboy, and Springfield Rifle – all in the late 1940s and early ‘50s. He made the move to writer-director in 1951 with Little Big Horn, followed by Hellgate. He wrote Pony Express, wrote and directed Arrowhead and Flight to Tangier, and directed Seven Angry Men.

In 1955 he was hired by CBS to develop the Gunsmoke radio show into a TV series, following a lawman in the American West. He produced the entire first season of the show and directed the first 26 episodes, then he was a producer for the first half of the second season before he left the show.

From there, Warren created his own production company, Emirau Productions. Some of his films from that period included Back from the Dead, Trooper Hook, Copper Sky, The Unknown Terror, Ride a Violent Mile, Blood Arrow, and Cattle Empire.

In 1957, he created Rawhide, a Western about cattle drivers, which starred a young Clint Eastwood. He served as producer on the show and occasionally wrote and directed episodes. Warren helped to develop The Virginian, centered around the foreman of a ranch, and he was producer on Gunslinger and The Iron Horse.

Later in his career, he wrote Day of the Evil Gun and wrote and directed Charro! starring Elvis Presley. He died in 1990 from a heart aneurysm and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.