Robert Culp filmography and biography
Date of birth: 16 August 1930, Oakland, California, USA
Date of death: 24 March 2010, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart attack)
Robert Culp biography
Tall, slim and exceedingly good-looking American leading man Robert
Culp, a former cartoonist in his teen years, appeared off-Broadway in
the 1950s before settling into polished, clean-cut film leads and
"other man" supports a decade later. Hitting the popular TV boards in
the hip, racially ground-breaking espionage program
I Spy, he made a slick (but never smarmy), sardonic
name for himself during his over five-decade career with his sly humor,
casual banter and tongue-and-cheek sexiness. Though he had the
requisite looks and smooth, manly appeal (not to mention acting talent)
for superstardom, a cool but cynical and somewhat detached persona may
have prevented him from attaining it full-out.
He was born Robert Martin Culp on August 16, 1930, in Oakland
California. The son of attorney Crozie Culp and his wife, Bethel
Collins, who was employed at a Berkeley chemical company, he offset his
only-child loneliness by playacting in local theater productions. Culp
also showed a talent for art while young and earned money as a
cartoonist for Bay Area magazines and newspapers in high school, but
the fascination with becoming an actor proved much stronger. He
attended Berkeley High School and graduated in 1947. The
athletically-inclined Culp dominated at track and field events and, as
a result, earned athletic scholarships to six different universities.
He selected the relatively minor College of the Pacific in Stockton,
California primarily because of its active theater department.
Transferring to various other colleges of higher learning (including
San Francisco State in 1949), he never earned a degree. After
performing in some theatre in the San Francisco area, he moved to
Seattle and then New York in 1951.
Studying under famed teacher Herbert Berghof and supporting
himself during this time teaching speech and phonetics, Bob eventually
found work on the theatre scene, making his 1963 Broadway debut (as
Robert M. Culp) in "The Prescott Proposals" with
Katharine Cornell. He eventually returned to Broadway with
"Diary of a Scoundrel" starring Blanche Yurka and
Roddy McDowall in 1956 and with a strong role in "A Clearing in
the Woods" (alongside Kim Stanley (I)) a year later. He earned
an off-Broadway Obie Award for his very fine work in "He Who Gets
Slapped" in 1956, and also appeared in the plays "Daily Life" and
"Easter".
Gracing a few live TV dramas during his New York days, he returned to
his native California for his first major TV role. It was an auspicious
one as post-Civil War Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman in the western series
Trackdown. He earned widespread attention in the series
that based many of its stories from actual Texas Ranger files, and the
show itself received the official approval not only of the Rangers
themselves but by the State of Texas. The series led to a CBS spin-off
of its own: Wanted: Dead or Alive, which made a TV star
out of Steve McQueen (I).
From there Culp guested on a number of series dramas: "Bonanza," "The
Rifleman," "Rawhide," "The Detectives," "Ben Casey," "The Outer
Limits," "Naked City" and "Combat!". He also starred in the two-part
Disney family-styled program "Sammy the Way Out Seal" (1962), which was
subsequently released as a feature in Europe. He and
Patricia Barry (I) played the hapless parents of precocious
Bill Mumy and Michael McGreevey whose "adopted" pet
animal unleashes major chaos in their suburban neighborhood.
During this time Bob began to seek lead and supporting work in films.
Despite his co-starring with Cliff Robertson (I),
Rod Taylor (I) and the very perky Jane Fonda (as her
straight-laced boyfriend) in the sparkling Broadway-based sexcapade
Sunday in New York; playing Robertson's naval mate in the
popular John F. Kennedy biopic PT 109; recreating
the legendary "Wild Bill" Hickok in the western tale
The Raiders; and heading up the adventurous cast of the
Ivan Tors' African yarn Rhino! (which included
Harry Guardino and the very fetching British import
Shirley Eaton), Culp wasn't able to make a serious dent in the
medium.
TV remained his best arena and gave him more lucrative offers
professionally. It rewarded him quite richly in 1965 with the debonair
series lead Kelly Robinson, a jet-setting, pro-circuit tennis player
who leads a double life as an international secret agent in
I Spy. Running three seasons, Culp co-starred with
fellow secret agent Bill Cosby, who, as Alexander Scott, posed
as Culp's tennis trainer. The role was tailor-made for the suave,
Ivy-League-looking actor. He looked effortlessly cool posing in
sunglasses amid the posh continental settings and remained handsomely
unflinching in the face of danger. It was the first U.S. prime-time
network drama to feature an African-American actor in a full-out
starring role and the relationship between the two meshed perfectly and
charismatically on screen. Both were nominated for acting Emmys in all
three of its seasons, with Cosby coming out the victor each time.
Filmed on location in such cities as Hong Kong, Acapulco and Tokyo,
Culp also wrote and directed certain episodes of the show He also met
his third wife, the gorgeous Eurasian actress France Nuyen while
on the set. They married in 1967 but divorced three years later. At
this stage the actor already had four children (by second wife,
sometime actress Nancy Ashe).
Following the series' demise, Culp took on perhaps his most-famous and
controversial film role as Natalie Wood (I)'s husband Bob in the
titillating but ultimately teasing "flower power" era film
Bob amp; Carol amp; Ted amp; Alice, with Elliott Gould and
Dyan Cannon as the other-half couple who examine the late 60s
"free love" idea of wife-swapping. The film was nominated for four
Academy Awards (two went to supporting actors Gould and Cannon). The
movie did not reignite Culp's popularity on the large screen, but it
did lead to his rather strange pairing with buxom Raquel Welch
in the violent-edged western Hannie Caulder and a reunion
with his "I Spy" pal Cosby in the far-more entertaining
Hickey amp; Boggs, which reestablished their great
tongue-in-cheek rapport as two weary-eyed private eyes. Culp also
directed the film while his real-life wife, actress
Sheila Sullivan, played his screen wife as well.
The late 1970s produced a flood of routine mini-movies and B-pictures,
the latter including Inside Out,
Sky Riders, Breaking Point,
The Great Scout amp; Cathouse Thursday,
Flood! (1976) (TV), Goldengirl, and
Hot Rod (1979) (TV). While he remained a sturdy and standard
presence in such mini-movies as
Houston, We've Got a Problem (1974) (TV),
Spectre (1977) (TV) and
Calendar Girl Murders (1984) (TV), his better TV-movie roles
were in A Cold Night's Death (1973) (TV),
Outrage (1973) (TV), A Cry for Help (1975) (TV) and as
Lyle Pettyjohn in the acclaimed mini-series sequel
Roots: The Next Generations.
Bob returned to series TV as stern CIA Chief Maxwell whose job was to
protect handsome Robert Redford (I) lookalike
William Katt, who starred as an ersatz
The Greatest American Hero. The show lasted three
seasons. Other series guest spots, both comedic and dramatic, included
"Hotel," "Highway to Heaven," "The Golden Girls" and an episode of his
old buddy's show "The Cosby Show". He was also a guest murderer in
three of the "Columbo" episodes. Although he was relegated to appearing
in such film fodder as Turk 182!,
Big Bad Mama II and
Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog, the 1990s offered him one
of his best film roles in years as the ill-fated President in the
Denzel Washington/Julia Roberts (I) political thriller
The Pelican Brief. A year later he again reteamed with
Cosby in the TV-movie I Spy Returns (1994) (TV).
Culp became very active in the 1960s Civil Rights movement and later
became a prominent face in local civic causes, joining in a lawsuit to
cease construction of an elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo and
accusing officials there of mistreatment. In the long run, however, the
construction was given the green light.
Culp also married a fifth time to Candace Faulkner and, by her, had
daughter Samantha in 1982. Older sons Jason Culp (born 1961) and
Joseph Culp (born 1963) became actors, while another son,
Joshua Culp (born 1958), entered the visual effects field.
Daughter Rachel, an outré clothing designer for rock stars, was born in
1964.
In later years Culp could be seen occasionally as
Ray Romano (I)'s father-in-law on the hugely popular
Everybody Loves Raymond. His last film, the family
drama The Assignment, was unreleased at the time of his
death. On March 24, 2010, the 79-year-old Culp collapsed from an
apparent heart attack while walking near the lower entrance to Runyon
Canyon Park, a popular hiking area in the Hollywood Hills. Found by a
hiker, Culp was transported to a nearby hospital where he died from the
head injuries he sustained in the fall. Five grandchildren also
survive.
Robert Culp trivia
- Born at 11:16pm-PDT
- Father of Joseph Culp, Joshua Culp, Jason Culp and
Rachel Culp, from his marriage to Nancy Asch.
- It was widely reported that Culp would have replaced Larry Hagman
as J.R. in Dallas if Hagman decided not to return to
the series because of contract negotiations. However, Culp has stated
that he was never asked to play the part of J.R. and was not contacted
by anyone from Dallas. At the time this took place, he
was costarring as F.B.I. agent "Bill Maxwell" on ABC's
The Greatest American Hero. He loved the show and his
role and has said that he would not have left the show even if the part
had been offered to him.
- He is a poker playing buddy of Hugh M. Hefner as a result, he is
a frequent guest at the Playboy Mansion.
- Father of Samantha Culp, from his marriage to Candace Faulkner.
- Wrote a pilot script in 1964 for an espionage series to star himself,
but opted for I Spy instead. He went on to write
several episodes for I Spy, including the first
episode.
- Wrote a pilot script in 1962-63 for director Sam Peckinpah called
"Summer Soldiers" that was never produced.
- Ex-stepfather of Fleur Morell.
- Both he and his I Spy co-star, Bill Cosby, were
involved in civil rights causes and, when Martin Luther King was
assassinated in 1968, the pair traveled to Memphis, Tenn., to join the
striking garbage workers King had been organizing.
- He studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village in New York City.
- At 21, as a senior at the University of Washington, Seattle, he won the
Philip Morris Playhouse on Broadway Intercollegiate Acting competition
on February 24, 1952. He won $2,000 after being judged by Helen Hayes,
Christian Westphalen and Clarence Derwent, ANTA and Equity officers.