Robert Culp

Robert Culp

1930–2010

In an acting career spanning six decades, Robert Culp’s teamwork with Bill Cosby in the television adventure comedy I Spy was a milestone. On the show, which ran from 1965 to 1968, Culp played an American spy who traveled the world carrying out dangerous assignments while posing as a pro tennis player. Posing as his trainer, Cosby played his partner-in-espionage, becoming the first black performer to star in a weekly drama. The inter­racial buddy act, enlivened by dry humor and frequently ad-libbed wisecracks, broke new ground at a time when race relations were in dramatic flux. It was “one of the hippest TV shows to have ever aired,’’ television historian Robert Thompson told The Washington Post.

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The son of a lawyer, Culp was born in Oakland, Calif., and attended high school in Berkeley before bouncing among four different colleges. Abandoning his pursuit of a degree, he moved to New York, where he studied acting and met with early success on and off Broadway. “The stage experience led him to Hollywood,” said Daily Variety, where Culp won the lead role in Trackdown, CBS’ 1957–59 drama about a Texas Ranger. Movie roles followed, including playing a member of John F. Kennedy’s crew in the biographical PT-109.

Culp’s most famous film role was in Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a 1969 comedy about wife-swapping. As Bob, Culp “swung between the poles of conventionality and counterculturalism like the peace sign that hung around his neck,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1972, he directed and starred in the film Hickey & Boggs, a commercial flop in which he played opposite Cosby once again.

Culp, who wrote and directed several I Spy episodes, was nominated for an Emmy Award for each of the show’s three seasons, losing (good-naturedly) to Cosby each time. But as smooth-talking spy Kelly Robinson, Culp cultivated a debonair persona that endured. “Tall and lithe with smoothly combed black hair,” said The Washington Post, “he was adept at conveying charm and wit.”

Culp remained a familiar presence on television, recently playing the father-in-law of Ray Romano’s character on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Cosby credited Culp with showing him the television ropes. “He was the big brother that all of us wish for,” Cosby said.