March is rapidly turning into the cruellest month for icons that straddled the big and small screens: Robert Culp has died after falling while taking a walk.
He was 79.
Culp’s career spanned decades and his fans spanned generations, but he may be best known for a couple of stand-out roles: that of Kelly Robinson in globe-trotting 1960s action series I Spy (which saw him star alongside Bill Cosby) and the 1980s series The Greatest American Hero, in which he played Bill Maxwell. Film-wise, he made waves with the sexually adventurous Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969.
A native of Oakland, California, he kick-started his career on the small screen with appearances on Western series Trackdown, for which he also wrote several episodes (a duty he would continue on I Spy).
Among his more notable guest roles on TV was starring in the classic Outer Limits episode Demon With A Glass Hand, written by science fiction enfant terrible Harlan Ellison, as well as playing a murderer in no less than three separate episodes of Columbo.
More recently, he could be found on several episodes of Ray Roman’s sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond, where he played Ray’s father-in-law. He also voiced video games and provided erudite narration for Eminem’s Guilty Conscience music video. Culp is also a member of the club of actors who have played the president of the United States on the silver screen, having occupied the Oval Office in The Pelican Brief.
He’s survived by his fifth wife, Candace Faulkner and five children.