So Long, Robert Culp

TV Confidential offers a fine tribute to actor Robert Culp, former co-star of the small-screen series I Spy (1965-1968), who perished earlier today after hitting his head in a fall outside his Los Angeles home. The New York Times’ obituary of Culp can be found here, while the L.A. Times weighs in on his passing here and here. Blog tributes are available here, here, here, and here.

I was rather too young to be an I Spy enthusiast, though in more recent years I have certainly watched episodes of that groundbreaking series (which also starred Bill Cosby). My own strongest memories of Culp come, instead, from his four guest-star appearances (three of them in the early 1970s, one in 1990) on Columbo, and from his short-lived rotation as one of the lead media investigators on NBC-TV’s The Name of the Game. He brought an intensity, credibility, and human depth to his roles that was hard to top.

Robert Culp was 79 years old.

READ MORE: “Why I Spy Was a Big Deal” (The HMSS Weblog); “Culp on Cain’s Hundred,” by Marty McKee (Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot); “Obit: Robert Culp, R.I.P.,” by Christopher Mills (Spy-fi Channel); “Culp,” by Stephen Bowie (The Classic TV History Blog).