Robert Conrad, starred in ‘The Wild, Wild West,’ dies at 84

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 James 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.”

Conrad was born Konrad Robert Falkowski in Chicago on March 1, 1935. His great-grandfather had emigrated from Germany, and his grandfather founded several meat shops in Chicago called Hartman’s. His father, an ironworker, was 15 years old when Conrad was born; his mother was 14.

Conrad moved from one school to another, and at 15 he left his parents’ house for a place known only to his girlfriend and his great-grandmother who sometimes fed him.

A football player in school, Conrad’s first job was loading trucks. Then at 18 he was hired to drive milk wagons.

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.”

AP

“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 interspersed his long, successful TV career with numerous roles in films. After a couple of small parts, his TV fame elevated him to stardom, starting in 1966 with “Young Dillinger,” in which he played Pretty Boy Floyd. Other films included “Murph the Surf,” “The Bandits” (which he also directed), “The Lady in Red” (this time as John Dillinger) and “Wrong Is Right.”

At the same time, he found plenty of time for arguments.

Throughout Hollywood, Conrad had a reputation as a tough customer and was sued more than a half-dozen times as a result of fist fights.

”I’m only about 5-feet-8 and only weigh 165 pounds as of this morning, so I’m not the world’s meanest guy,” he told an interviewer in 2008.

”If you treat me nicely, I’ll treat you nicer,” he added. “If you’re rude to me, put your headgear on. Here it comes.”

His daughter Nancy Conrad, who appeared in some of his pictures, explained it this way: “Dad is a hard worker. If people drag their feet, he gets impatient. He starts ranting and raving. It takes a while to patiently take him aside and show him why things might not be going well.”

He frequently employed his offspring in his movies and TV shows.

An example was the 1988 television series “High Mountain Rangers,” which Conrad had proposed, bankrolled with his own money and directed. He hired sons Shane and Christian as co-stars, daughter Joan as producer and daughter Nancy as caterer. His first wife handled financial matters.

The show, about a group of law enforcement officers, was filmed in the High Sierra mountain range near Lake Tahoe.

Conrad’s later film credits included 1996’s “Jingle All The Way” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and 2002’s “Dead Above Ground.”

He tried boxing and nightclub singing for a time before drifting into acting and eventually moving to Hollywood, where he found work as a stuntman.

In lieu of flowers, Conrad’s family is requesting donations to the Wounded Warrior Project and The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation

Conrad is survived by eight children and 18 grandchildren.

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