Robert Conrad - # 221

Robert Conrad, Two-Fisted TV Star of ‘Wild Wild West,’ Dies at 84

He was number 221 on the list.

Mr. Conrad, known for tough guy roles, played a secret agent in a mid-1960s television series that transplanted James Bond-style plots into an Old West setting.

Robert Conrad, a television tough guy best known for his lead role in the mid-1960s series “The Wild

The cause was heart failure, Jeff Ballard, a family spokesman, said.

Mr. Conrad’s fearlessness and good looks served him well in “Wild Wild West” and many other shows, though he found the most satisfaction in some later, meatier roles, like the fur trader he played in the mini-series “Centennial” in the late 1970s.

He was also well served early on by his ability — at least by the not very rigorous standards of the late 1950s — to affect an ethnically ambiguous character. In one of his earliest roles, he had a bit part as an Indian.

“I had to get shot by the good guys and fall off a horse, which I did successfully, and that established me as having enough talent to do stunts,” he recalled in an oral history recorded in 2006 for the Archive of American Television, “so when there was a speaking role and a stunt associated with that speaking role, they’d hire me, because you got two for the price of one.”

In 1959, he landed the role of Tom Lopaka, a mixed-race private detective (“half white, half bronze,” as he put it), on “Hawaiian Eye,” a crime series that ran for four seasons on ABC. It also starred, among others, Connie Stevens, and both she and Mr. Conrad, a decent vocalist who had released several records, would sometimes sing in musical interludes built into the show.

Then, in 1965, came “The Wild Wild West,” a CBS series that, somewhat improbably, grafted the mania for spy fare set off by the James Bond movies of the day onto an Old West setting.

Mr. Conrad played Jim West, who was dispatched on various secret missions on behalf of the government of President Ulysses S. Grant. West had an arsenal of quirky gadgets — exploding billiard balls, a pistol on a track hidden up his sleeve — and a partner (played by Ross Martin) who was adept at outlandish disguises.

“The character I played was a dandy,” Mr. Conrad said in the oral history. “His clothes were too tight, for one. He rode this champion horse, this class horse. And he spent most of the series engaged in physical confrontations with bad guys.”

The fights, with Mr. Conrad often doing his own stunts, got a lot of attention. So did those tight clothes, especially the distinctive trousers.

“They put me on these elevated boots and shoes, which made me extremely uncomfortable,” Mr. Conrad said in an interview done for a mini-documentary made for a “Best of the Wild Wild West” marathon TNT broadcast in the 1990s, “and then they glued me into my pants, which made me even more uncomfortable, because they wanted the matador look.”

The dark-colored pants split so often, he said, that he took to wearing dark-colored underwear rather than white.

If the pants had a short shelf life, it was because the show’s rough-and-tumble scenes put them to the test repeatedly.

Mr. Conrad often said that he did all his own stunts, but Gene Scott Freese, in his 2014 book, “Hollywood Stunt Performers, 1910s-1970s,” found that this wasn’t entirely true — a practiced eye can detect known stuntmen of the day in some scenes. (“They were under strict orders never to be caught on the set in Conrad’s wardrobe,” Mr. Freese wrote, “fostering the illusion to the press and the public that Conrad’s proud claims were true.”)

But certainly Mr. Conrad was frequently the one doing the punching, rolling and leaping. Mr. Conrad said the scripts would often say simply, “He fights,” and he and the stunt coordinator, Whitey Hughes, would come up with something. Once, near the end of Season 3, the result was almost catastrophic.

“The accident came when Bob, jumping from a balcony, missed the chandelier and landed on his head,” The Boston Globe wrote, describing an on-set miscue that left Mr. Conrad with a skull fracture and concussion. “It was almost curtains for the actor. Doctors said he was lucky to be alive.”

Mr. Conrad put it more succinctly in the oral history. “I almost ate the cookie,” he said, “but I didn’t.”

Mr. Conrad was born Conrad Robert Falk on March 1, 1935, on the South Side of Chicago to teenage parents. His father, Leonard Falk, later was superintendent at a New Jersey plant that made chocolate flavoring. His mother, Jacqueline Hartman, later became a publicist under the name Jacqueline Hubbard.

The future TV star adopted the name Robert Conrad as a young man because, he said, his mother married a number of times. “Every time my mother would have a marriage she would change my name to the name of her husband,” he said, “and I got tired of it.”

Mr. Conrad began his show-business career as a singer, performing with a trio in Chicago hotels when he was in his early 20s. A friend, the actor Nick Adams, urged Mr. Conrad to come to Hollywood and got him a bit part in a movie he was cast in, “Juvenile Jungle.” Mr. Adams eventually dropped out of that film, but Mr. Conrad remained, making his film debut.

He began getting small roles in shows like “Bat Masterson,” “Maverick” and “Sea Hunt.” Then came “Hawaiian Eye,” with the character he played there, Tom Lopaka, also turning up in several episodes of another ABC crime series, “77 Sunset Strip.” Mr. Conrad was also one of the young stars of “Palm Springs Weekend,” a fun-in-the-sun movie that came out in 1963.
“Hawaiian Eye” ended in 1963. Mr. Conrad was filming a movie, “Young Dillinger,” in which he played the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd (Mr. Adams was Dillinger), when his agent called with the offer to audition for “The Wild Wild West.”

The show made its debut in September 1965 and ran for four seasons and more than 100 episodes. It drew decent ratings, but a wave of concern about violence on television helped push it off the air in 1969. (One version of the show’s animated opening montage showed Mr. Conrad’s character kissing a woman, then slugging her.) He had no regrets, since the on-set injury was still fresh in his mind.

“I was afraid someone was going to get carted out of there on a stretcher,” he said.

If Mr. Conrad acknowledged the thinness of his “Wild Wild West” role, he was more proud of two later television efforts. One was “Black Sheep Squadron” (also titled “Baa Baa Black Sheep”), an NBC series that ran from 1976 to 1978 in which he played the real-life World War II combat pilot known as Pappy Boyington. The other was “Centennial,” a 1978 mini-series based on James A. Michener’s historical novel.

In this same period he was all over television in another capacity, as pitchman for Eveready batteries. The memorable spots featured Mr. Conrad engaging in a tough-guy activity — boxing, for instance — and then putting a battery on his shoulder and uttering variations of the catchphrase “I dare you to knock this off.”

Mr. Conrad also starred or appeared in numerous other television shows, including “The D.A.,” “A Man Called Sloane” and “High Mountain Rangers.” He reprised his best-known role in two television movies, “The Wild Wild West Revisited” in 1979 and “More Wild Wild West” in 1980.

In 2003 Mr. Conrad was charged with driving drunk after his car crashed into another vehicle, seriously injuring the other driver and himself. Mr. Conrad, who was left with some right arm and hand paralysis, was fined and sentenced to six months of house arrest.

He married Joan Kenlay in 1952; the marriage ended in divorce in 1977. Soon afterward, he married LaVelda Fann, who was Miss National Teenager 1977 when he met her at the pageant at which she was passing on her crown. (He was the M.C.) They divorced in 2010. His survivors include five children from his first marriage, Joan, Shane, Christian, Christy and Nancy; three children from his second marriage, Kaja, Camille and Chelsea; and 18 grandchildren.

Mr. Conrad took delight in the fact that, thanks to reruns and retrospectives, “The Wild Wild West” attained a certain cult status with fans who weren’t yet born when it was originally on TV.

“The show that wasn’t supposed to work, works,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1994 when TNT was rerunning episodes. “I feel like the battery I used to represent. I feel like the Energizer. I am going on and on and on.”

Wild West,” died on Saturday at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 84.

Filmography



Film

Year Title Role Notes

1958 Juvenile Jungle Minor Role Uncredited

1958 Thundering Jets Lt. Robert 'Tiger Bob' Kiley

1959 Paratroop Command Art Uncredited

1962 Red Nightmare Pete Short film shot in 1957

1963 Palm Springs Weekend Eric Dean

1964 La nueva Cenicienta Bob Conrad

1965 Young Dillinger 'Pretty Boy' Floyd

1967 Ven a cantar conmigo Bob

1967 The Bandits Chris Barrett Also director and writer

1969 Keene Credited as Bob Conrad

1975 Murph the Surf Allan Kuhn

1977 Sudden Death Duke Smith

1979 The Lady in Red John Dillinger

1982 Wrong Is Right Gen. Wombat

1985 Moving Violations Chief Rowe Uncredited

1994 Samurai Cowboy Gabe McBride

1996 Jingle All the Way Officer Hummell

1999 New Jersey Turnpikes

1999 Garbage Day Garbage Thrower Short

2002 Dead Above Ground Reed Wilson Final film role



Television

Year Title Role Notes

1959 Bat Masterson Juanito Episode: "One Bullet from Broken Bow"

1959 Maverick Davie Barrows Episode: "Yellow River"

1959 Sea Hunt Hal Peters / The Boat Captain 2 episodes

1959 Highway Patrol Tommy Chugg Episode: "Revenge"

1959 Lawman Davey Catterton Episode: "Battle Scar"

1959 Colt .45 Billy the Kid Episode: "Amnesty"

1959 The Man and the Challenge Bill Howard Episode: "Maximum Capacity"

1959 Lock-Up Harry Connors Episode: "The Harry Connors Story"

1959–1962 77 Sunset Strip Tom Lopaka 4 episodes

1959–1963 Hawaiian Eye Tom Lopaka 104 episodes

1962 The Gallant Men Sgt. Griff Benedict Episode: "And Cain Cried Out"

1964 Temple Houston Martin Purcell Episode: "The Town That Trespassed"

1965 Kraft Suspense Theatre Gary Kemp Episode: "Four into Zero"

1965–1969 The Wild Wild West Jim West 104 episodes

1968–1972 Mission: Impossible Bobby / Press Allen / Eddie Lorca 4 episodes

1969 Mannix Mitch Cantrell Episode: "The Playground"

1969 The D.A.: Murder One Paul Ryan Television film

1970 Weekend of Terror Eddie Television film

1971 The D.A.: Conspiracy to Kill Deputy D.A. Paul Ryan Television film

1971 Five Desperate Women Michael Wylie Television film

1971 Adam-12 Deputy D.A. Paul Ryan Episode: "The Radical"

1971–1972 The D.A. Deputy D.A. Paul Ryan 15 episodes

1972 Adventures of Nick Carter Nick Carter Television film

1972–1973 Assignment Vienna Jake Webster 8 episodes

1974 Columbo Milo Janus Episode: "An Exercise in Fatality"

1975 The Last Day Bob Dalton Television film

1976 Smash-Up on Interstate 5 Sergeant Sam Marcum Television film

1976–1978 Baa Baa Black Sheep Maj. Greg 'Pappy' Boyington 36 episodes

1977 Laugh-In Guest Performer Episode: #1.4

1978 Confessions of the D.A. Man Paul Ryan Television film

1978–1979 Centennial Pasquinel Television miniseries

1979 The Duke Oscar 'Duke' Ramsey Television miniseries

1979 The Wild Wild West Revisited Jim West Television film

1979 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Frank Scapa Television film

1979 A Man Called Sloane Thomas R. Sloane 12 episodes

1980 More Wild Wild West Jim West Television film

1980 Coach of the Year Jim Brandon Television film

1982 Will: G. Gordon Liddy G. Gordon Liddy Television film

1983 Confessions of a Married Man Television film

1984 Hard Knox Col. Joe Knox Television film

1985 Two Fathers' Justice Bill Stackhouse Television film

1986 The Fifth Missile Cmdr. Mark Van Meer Television film

1986 Assassin Henry Stanton Television film

1986 Charley Hannah Capt. Charley Hannah Television film

1986 One Police Plaza Lt. Daniel B. Malone Television film

1987 J.J. Starbuck Corbett Cook Episode: "A Killing in the Market"

1987–1988 High Mountain Rangers Jesse Hawkes 13 episodes

1988 Police Story: Gladiator School Officer Charles 'Chick' Stacy Television film

1988 Glory Days Mike Moran Television film

1989 Jesse Hawkes Jesse Hawkes 6 episodes

1990 Anything to Survive Eddie Barton Television film

1992 Mario and the Mob Mario Dante Television film

1993 Sworn to Vengeance Sergeant Stewart Television film

1994 Two Fathers: Justice for the Innocent Stackhouse Television film

1994 Search and Rescue Tooter Television film

1995 High Sierra Search and Rescue Griffin 'Tooter' Campbell 6 episodes

1999 Just Shoot Me! Himself Episode: "Jack Gets Tough"

2000 Nash Bridges Caltrans Guy Episode: "Heist"