Everything I am I owe to Robert Culp

Those who know me already know that I'm many things. I'm a SAG actor, tennis player and part time writer. Tonight I had the pleasure of indulging in a guilty pleasure... reruns of the 1960's TV show I Spy with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. In 1965 these two guys were the epitome of cool. They oozed it from every pore. And when I think back about all the things that interest me they all begin and end with Robert Culp.



I first became aware of Bob (we're on a first name basis you know) in 1963 with his appearance on my favorite show, The Outer Limits. He starred as the character of Allen Leighton in the episode "The Architects of Fear". It concerned a group of men in a think tank who "invent" a new enemy, a new foe for mankind to fear so that they won't go to war themselves, rather, they would unite to fight a more terrifying enemy. The enemy in question would be a genetically altered Allen Leighton, made to resemble a terrifying alien life form. Of course the experiment fails only to show the folly of trying to fool all the people all of the time.



Culp would go on to star in two other episodes of The Outer Limits, one called Demon With A Glass Hand and Corpus Earthling. Both of them were brilliant and well written.

But it was I Spy where Robert Culp influenced my life in a major way. The repartee between Culp and Cosby's characters was fascinating and hilarious. It was a departure from the formal and stilted language of Dragnet. Instead these characters spoke like real people and how groundbreaking it was to see a white American male have equal standing with an African-American which had been unheard of before I Spy. The two of them are delightful and engaging to watch. Culp's character in I Spy is Kelly Robinson, a professional tennis player on the tour. But he's really a government agent, a spy, who does the James Bond thing in exotic locales like Hong Kong and Tokyo. This is what attracted me to the game of tennis. No, it wasn't the on-court heroics of Rod Laver, it was Robert Culp! Oh sure, years later I came to appreciate Rod Laver's genius but it was coolness that got me into the game. Tennis players were cool. Secret agents were cool. Actors were cool. OK, I never became a secret agent but the thought did cross my mind. Of course I became an actor too and Robert Culp can take some credit for that as well. Later I attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where my strong suit was Shakepeare. But it wasn't Shakespeare that was the hook for me at ten years of age, it was Robert Culp. Coolness incarnate. Long may he live.