Actor Robert Culp was found dead outside his Hollywood home on 24 March 2010, apparently felled by a heart attack. Born 16 August 1930 in Oakland, California, he was best known as half of the starring duo in I Spy (1965-68), for which he was nominated for Emmy Awards in all three years (he lost out, each time, to his co-star, Bill Cosby). Culp also wrote a dozen television episodes (including seven I Spys), and directed a handful.
Culp’s manager, Hillard Elkins (who reported his death) said Culp had recently been trying his hand at writing several screenplays.
Culp attended at least five colleges, and was attending the University of Washington’s drama school when, he once said “I saw [He Who Gets Slapped] in college in Seattle, and I said, ‘My God, that’s my part, that’s my part.'” He left college one semester shy of graduation, at the age of 21, and moved to New York, where he started appearing in off-Broadway plays.
He debuted on television in 1953, and got his first starring role in the western Trackdown (1957-59). His first film role came in 1963’s PT 109. But it was I Spy that made his name. The comic-adventure series was “the first integrated television show to feature a black actor in a starring role,” according to the New York Times. Culp and Cosby played spies traveling the world in the guise of an ace tennis player (Culp) and his trainer (Cosby). The pair recreated their roles for the 1994 CBS television movie I Spy Returns.
Reacting to Culp’s death, Cosby said he saw Culp as an older brother. “The first born in every family is always dreaming of the older brother or sister he or she doesn’t have, to protect, to be the buffer, provide the wisdom, shoulder the blows and make things right. Bob was the answer to my dreams. No matter how many mistakes I made on I Spy, he was always there to teach and protect me.”
After the series ended, Culp got his big movie break, starring in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice with Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould, and Dyan Cannon.
SF fans will remember Culp as FBI Agent Bill Maxwell in The Greatest American Hero, which starred William Katt as the man with the red alien super-suit (1981-83, he also wrote and directed two of the episodes). His other genre roles include: Santa’s Slay (2005), The Dead Zone (2003), Conan (1998), Viper (1997), four episodes of Gargoyles (1995-96), Xtro 3: Watch the Skies (1995), two episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1995), Timebomb (1991), The Ray Bradbury Theater (1990), Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (1989), Goldengirl (1979), Spectre (1977), A Cold Night’s Death (1973), A Name for Evil (1973), three episodes of The Outer Limits (1963-64), and Now is Tomorrow (1958).
Culp was married and divorced five times, and leaves five children. One of his ex-wives, Candace Culp, said she was devastated by his death. “He was a wonderful, creative man who contributed so much to his business, as an actor, as a writer, as a director.”