TV & Video - Nov. 6, 1989

Blake Cause of Death Revealed Actress Amanda Blake, who starred for many years as television’s Miss Kitty in the Western series “Gunsmoke,” died of AIDS, her doctor has confirmed. Her Aug. 16 death of throat cancer at age 60 was complicated by a type of viral hepatitis brought on by acquired immune deficiency syndrome, her physician Lou Nishimura said Saturday. She died at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento. Nishimura said that he listed AIDS as a cause of death on Blake’s death certificate but that it was not disclosed publicly. The doctor said he heard nothing more about it until he was called Friday by Sacramento television anchorwoman Christine Craft (who in the early 1980s filed a highly publicized sex-discrimination suit against her former employer, a Kansas City television station). Nishimura said Blake never told him how she became infected with the fatal disease. He said the actress was not a user of drug needles and had not contracted the disease through a blood transfusion.