...that Agent 86 is no longer with us? Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the hit series Get Smart, past away Sunday night at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, having suffered a lung infection. He was 82. Thanks to syndication, many of us who grew up after the show's cancellation were still able to enjoy his antics, along with his fellow Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldman. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart also featured the likes of Bernie Kopell, as archvillain Siegfried who, despite the show taking place during the height of the Cold War, sported a German accent. (Kopell later went on to become the sex-obsessed "Doc" on The Love Boat.)
Besides doing commercials and the voiceover for the animated series Inspector Gadget, Adams (born Donald Yarmy) served in the Marines and contracted "blackwater fever" while on Guadalcanal. He then became a drill instructor. (It boggles the mind that this drill instructor would one day star in a movie called The Nude Bomb.) He will be missed.
P.S. For the superstitious, this marks the second death of a 60s sitcom star in the span of a few short weeks. First was Bob Denver. Now Adams. Who's next? Ernest Borgnine?
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3 comments:
There's something suspicious about Schumer bringing up the "cone of silence" in the Roberts hearings...
In praise of the departed and his behavior as a private citizen, I offer this anecdote told me some years ago by my friend, Barry Ingber. Ingber grew up in Beverly Hills and Adams lived down the street, but they had never met.
In those days, the Tonight Show still filmed in New York. Then they got the idea of doing a brief trial run in Burbank. Barry was a 12 or 13 year old kid and he and a friend desperately wanted to attend a filming of the Tonight Show.
So they took their hearts in their hands and knocked on Adams' door one morning. He answered in his bathrobe, and said, "What can I do for you kids?" They told him, he promptly made a phone call and they got to be among the select few who experienced that shining moment in TV history.
A good guy. Rest in peace.
...but the good news is that not only is Adams' lifelong friend (and F Troop star) Larry Storch alive at 82, he is in two movies released this year, Bittersweet Place and Funny Valentine.
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