Robert Conrad RIP
March 1, 1935 - February 08, 2020
One of my childhood heros.
Over his long acting career, two of his shows were favorites of mine.
I might have been in Kindergarden when I saw my first episode of Wild Wild West.
Set in the Old West under President Grant, James West was the hard fighting secrect service agent always ready to brawl with the bad guys, and when things got too tough he'd pull some SciFi gadget out of a secret pocket to overcome what seemed insurmountable odds. Amazing stuff to a youngster like myself.
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Much later he starred in another TV series I also enjoyed called Black Sheep Squadron (aka Baa Baa Black Sheep).
A series loosely based on the exploits of Marine pilot Maj. Greg 'Pappy' Boyington (A real troublemaker, but also the winner of Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross). A hard drinking veteran of the Flying Tigers in China transplanted to the South Pacific where he managed to whip a rag tag batch of misfit pilots into one of the best fighter pilot squadrons of WWII. Lots of Japanese Zeros "flamed" during the course of the show, sometimes with actual WWII video footage. Meanwhile on the ground, lots of booze, fistfights, nurses, and clandistine black market deals.
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RIP Bob. Your entertaining portrayals of bare knuckled bad-a$$es will always be fondly remembered by me.