Peter Graves

Peter Graves

1926–2010

Peter Graves faced off against many villains during his 60-year acting career, ranging from a pickle-shaped space monster in It Conquered the World to shadowy foreign agents in Mission Impossible. But he may be best remembered for taking on his own straight-laced image in the disaster-movie spoof Airplane!, in which he played Capt. Clarence Oveur, an airline pilot who got a little too friendly with the young boys who visited his cockpit.

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Graves, who was born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis, was the son of a businessman and a journalist. His older brother, James (who dropped the “u” from his last name), also went into show business, eventually playing Marshal Matt Dillon in the long-running series Gunsmoke. To avoid any confusion with his brother, said The New York Times, Graves adopted the last name of his maternal grandfather. His film career began in the 1951 Western Rogue River, and he played a German spy in Billy Wilder’s acclaimed 1953 film Stalag 17. But he also took less prestigious roles, in science-fiction quickies like Beginning of the End and Killers From Space, in which he demonstrated his knack for “injecting a certain believability into even the campiest plot.” He broke into television in 1955 as rancher Jim Newton in Fury, which ran until 1959.

In 1967, he was cast as agent Jim Phelps, the leader of an elite team of spies known as the Impossible Missions Force. He appeared in that role until 1973, winning a Golden Globe in 1971. Mission Impossible “branded Graves as an actor who could deliver solid, straight-shooting roles,” said the Los Angeles Times. But he lampooned that image in Airplane!, portraying “the bumbling pilot whose one-liners included, ‘Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?’” He initially turned down the role, but changed his mind after filmmakers David and Jerry Zucker told him the satirical part demanded an actor of Graves’ “stature and dignity.”

In the 1990s, he served as the gray-haired eminence of A&E’s Biography. He died moments after returning home from a family brunch to celebrate his upcoming 84th birthday.