Actor Robert Conrad, best known as the rough-and-tumble tough guy of TV's "The Wild Wild West," has died at 84.
A family spokesman confirmed the star's death to People magazine on Saturday.
"The Wild Wild West" ran on CBS from 1965-69. On it, Conrad starred as Jim West, a Secret Service agent in the time of President Ulysses Grant.
Ross Martin co-starred on the series, which ran for 104 episodes. Will Smith and Kevin Kline starred in a 1999 feature film version.
Conrad was born in Chicago and attended Northwestern University. His first role was a bit part in the 1958 film "Juvenile Jungle."
His big break came in the TV series "Hawaiian Eye" in 1959. Conrad and actor Anthony Eisley played private eyes at a detective agency and security company in Honolulu. That show aired 134 episodes before wrapping up in 1963.
"The Wild, Wild West" was probably Conrad's signature role.
The show featured tongue-in-cheek comedy and lots of action, with the rugged Conrad doing his own stunts.
"We always put in lot more (fighting) than we really wanted to see," he was quoted as saying on his IMDB page. (The censors) would say, "We're going to take out two punches ... two of this ... three of that ... So when they finished, we were still left with what we really wanted anyway."
He was made an honorary inductee into the Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame.
Conrad found more series success in the 1970s, playing real-life Marine Corps aviator Greg "Pappy" Boyington on "Baa Baa Black Sheep." The World War II show ran on NBC for 36 episodes from 1976-78.
He put his tough-guy image to use in a series of Eveready Battery commercials, where he would dare the viewer to knock the battery off his shoulder.
Conrad also was a staple on "The Battle of the Network Stars," an ABC series that debuted in 1976 and pitted actors from TV shows on ABC, CBS and NBC in athletic competition. Howard Cosell hosted the spectacle, which featured events such as kayaking, obstacle course races and tug of war contests _ and a dunk tank where a properly thrown baseball would send a celebrity plunging into the water.
Most celebrities took the event lightly, but Conrad played to win.
Also in the 1970s, Conrad played a killer in an episode of "Columbo" and was a guest on shows such as "Mission: Impossible" and "Mannix." He headlined three more series, "A Man Called Sloane" in 1979, "High Mountain Rangers" in 1987-88 and "Jesse Hawkes" in 1989, but none was a hit.
Conrad was known mostly for TV, but did appear in films, including "Jingle All the Way" with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1996.
He also appeared as a sheriff in Richard Marx's 1992 music video "Hazard." Conrad had studied singing under Marx's father, Dick Marx.
"RIP my old friend," Marx tweeted Saturday. "You were one of a kind."
Conrad was married and divorced twice and had nine children.
