LOS ANGELES — Robert Conrad, the rugged, contentious actor who starred in the hugely popular 1960s television series “Hawaiian Eye” and “The Wild, Wild West,” has died. He was 84.
Family spokesperson Jeff Ballard said Conrad died Saturday morning in Malibu, California from heart failure.
With his good looks, steely blue eyes and strong physique, Conrad was a rising young actor in the late 1950s and was chosen for the lead in “Hawaiian Eye.” Conrad played Tom Lopaka, a daring private investigator whose partner was Tracy Steele, played by Anthony Eisley. They operated out of a fancy office overlooking the pool at a popular Waikiki hotel.
The two private eyes alternated on simple investigations with help from the island’s colorful characters, including a singer named Cricket Blake (Connie Stevens) and a ukulele-strumming taxi driver named Kazuo (Poncie Ponce).
He became an overnight star after the TV series debuted in 1959.
After five seasons with the show, Conrad went on to embrace the television craze of the time, period Westerns, but with a decidedly different twist.
But he was best known for his starring role on the hit television series “The Wild Wild West,” from 1965-1969, starring as the debonair and tough Secret Service agent Jim West, alongside co-star Ross Martin. Conrad performed all of his own stunts in the series, having established himself years earlier as a bona fide stuntman. From 1976-1978 he starred as real-life World War II combat pilot Pappy Boyington in “Black Sheep Squadron, a role which earned him a People’s Choice Award and a Golden Globe nomination.
Conrad had a reputation as a tough customer and was sued more than a half-dozen times as a result of fist fights. Playing himself in a 1999 episode of the TV series “Just Shoot Me,” he lampooned his threatening, tough-guy persona. He was also featured in 1970s commercials for Eveready Batteries, with a battery on his shoulder, a menacing stare and a popular catchphrase, “I dare you to knock this off.”
Other TV credits includes guest appearances on “Columbo,” “Mannix” and “Mission: Impossible.”
Conrad was born Conrad Robert Falk in 1935 in Chicago. In a 1986 interview with the Sun-Times, Conrad talked of his upbringing, including teen years marked with frequent fighting and truancy: “I’m basically a lower-middle-class, blue-collar person.” His father, an ironworker, was 15 years old when Conrad was born; his mother was 14.
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“I lived at 6105 S. Bishop, and 62nd Street was my hangout. It was a tough neighborhood, so I had to be a tough kid,” Conrad said in a 2006 interview with the Sun-Times. “My grandfather worked at the stockyards, and I worked at Consolidated Railways, the midnight shift, until 8:30 in the morning. The family needed money, so I worked two jobs. We’d work, we’d go to the tavern and cash our checks and buy a round. It was like that. The neighborhood is in my soul. So that upbringing makes you tough because you had to be.”
Despite his troubled youth, Conrad would go on to attend Northwestern University, majoring in theater arts.
Conrad had five children with his first wife, Joan. The couple, married in 1952, divorced after 25 years. He married his second wife LaVelda Fann, in 1983. They were married for 27 years and had three children. They divorced in 2010.
Contributing: Sun-Times reporter Miriam Di Nunzio
