Although he may be best-known for engaging in comedic espionage alongside Bill Cosby, Robert Culp made numerous ventures into our favorite genre, and the sad news has come through that the actor died earlier today outside his Hollywood home. He was 79.

According the Associated Press, Culp was discovered by a jogger this morning, taken to a hospital and pronounced dead shortly before noon. He apparently fell and hit his head, and his son was told that he had suffered a heart attack.

After numerous other television credits (including three episodes of the original OUTER LIMITS), Culp achieved his greatest stardom in the 1965-68 series I SPY, which broke racial barriers by casting Cosby opposite Culp. Subsequently, he starred in the 1973 cult TV movie A COLD NIGHT’S DEATH, in which he and Eli Wallach play scientists at an Antarctic research station whose experiments in primate intelligence begin to go awry. In 1977, he starred as an occult investigator in SPECTRE, a feature-length supernatural pilot that never went to series, executive-produced and written by STAR TREK’s Gene Roddenberry. Culp also starred in the 1973 theatrical feature A NAME FOR EVIL, 1995’s direct-to-video sequel XTRO 3: WATCH THE SKIES and two Christmas-themed fright films: 1989’s SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT III: BETTER WATCH OUT! (co-starring Bill Moseley) and 2005’s SANTA’S SLAY.

 

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