Facts About Robert Culp

Anybody else remember him from "I Spy?"

Robert CulpPhoto byCreative Commons: Manuel Bartual from Madrid, España

I have vague recollections of watching Robert Culp team with a then popular Bill Cosby in a TV show called” I Spy.” The show combined action and humor as well as excellent chemistry between Culp and Cosby. In addition, Culp played in a number of westerns, so that helped his visibility, at least with me.

Before I started writing this, I didn’t know a lot about Culp. When I started getting more information about Culp, I was surprised, and not always in a good way. With that said, here some things you didn’t know about Robert Culp.

1: He was a poker buddy of Hugh Hefner, so he spent a lot of time at the Playboy Mansion.

So, did they play Strip Poker at the Playboy Mansion?

2: Perhaps related to that, Culp was known to be very active in Southern California’s swinger subculture.

Is that like in baseball when sometimes there is a swing and a miss?

3: Culp was one of only five actors to play multiple killers in “Columbo.”

So, he was somewhat of an acting serial killer on the show.

4: Initially, Culp didn’t get along well with William Katt, his co-star on “The Greatest American Hero.” They did get along better as the series wore on.

I find it interesting that Culp found it easier to get along with Bill Cosby than William Katt.

5: Culp was married five times.

And apparently was a swinger. It reminds me of a baseball hitter who has no discipline and swings at everything. His personal life was like Javy Baez’s approach at the plate.

6: Early in life, Culp wanted to be a cartoonist, but was bitten by the acting bug.

Oddly, I’ve never heard of an actor being bitten by the cartooning bug.

7: Culp played Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, in the TV western, Trackdown.

The series remains the only one to be endorsed by the actual Texas Rangers. So, Hoby Gilman has gotten more love than Cordell Walker from the Texas Rangers.

8: In on episode of Trackdown, Gilman went up against a conman named Trump, who threatened to sue him for slander.

And I’m not going to comment on it, other than to say, the episode was called, “The End of the World.”

9: In addition to acting, Culp was also a pretty good screen writer. He wrote an episode of Trackdown, plus a two-part episode of “The Rifelman. And based on his life, an ironically named episode of “Caine’s Hundred,” called “The Swinger.”

It seems like Culp might have done a lot of research for the show.

10: In 1969, Robert starred in the sex comedy, “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.”

I assume he was Bob or Ted.