Robert Conrad, star of 1960s sci-fi western The Wild Wild West, dies at 84

The New York Times

With his tough guy fearlessness and good looks, Conrad starred in CBS' The Wild Wild West from 1965 to 1969 as Secret Service agent Jim West, described as a "James Bond on horseback" who was dispatched on various secret missions on behalf of the government of President Ulysses S. Grant. “The character I played was a dandy,” Conrad said in a 2006 Archive of American Television oral history. “His clothes were too tight, for one. He rode this champion horse, this class horse. And he spent most of the series engaged in physical confrontations with bad guys.” Conrad also played a mixed-race -- “half white, half bronze" -- private detective Tom Lopaka in ABC's Hawaiian Eye from 1959 to 1963 and the commanding officer of a World War II Marine squadron in NBC's Stephen J. Cannell military drama Baa Baa Black Sheep from 1976 to 1978. Conrad is also one of the few actors to have been inducted into the Stuntmen's Hall of Fame.