Originally Posted by alcyon
Originally Posted by dishdude
I have no idea who this is.
He was kind of a TV and B movie actor of the 1960s, 70s and 80's.
I first saw him as a regular in the Warners TV series Hawaiian Eye -- one of their stable of private eye shows, all set in the same universe so that the characters from 77 Sunset Strip could and did visit on HE or Bourbon Street Beat. Wild Wild West came along in 1965, as TV was ramping up its fad for spy shows. It was a contemporary of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and others, and ran for, what, four years? I got to see the first year episodes on MeTV last year, and was startled to see they were in black-and-white. (All shows were B & W to me as a kid, as we didn't have a color set.) West was really sort of original, as nobody had tried melding the Western with the Bondian spy story, at least not on TV. I understand nowadays it's considered as a father to the "steampunk" genre.
Conrad was convincing, as he always was on screen. Nobody ever claimed he was an Olivier-type actor, or a DeNiro, or an Alec Guinness; and i suspect he'd have been the first to laugh if you suggested such a thing. But he always seemed to give 100% .
Oh, I almost forgot: His 1980-or-so second attempt at the spy genre, A Man Called Sloane. It was no U.N.C.L.E. or WWW, and as I recall seemed kind of low-budget.
And he did turn in a good dramatic performance in a movie around 1979, about a group of male friends dealing with marriage and divorce, etc., as they go into early middle age, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. Billy Crystal and David Ogden Stiers are in it too. Conrad plays the very athletic, very macho member of the group. The film ends with the others all having learned something and having moved forward in their lives, but he has not, and they drift away from him. Kind of affecting, as I recall.
Originally Posted by dishdude
I have no idea who this is.
He was kind of a TV and B movie actor of the 1960s, 70s and 80's.
I first saw him as a regular in the Warners TV series Hawaiian Eye -- one of their stable of private eye shows, all set in the same universe so that the characters from 77 Sunset Strip could and did visit on HE or Bourbon Street Beat. Wild Wild West came along in 1965, as TV was ramping up its fad for spy shows. It was a contemporary of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and others, and ran for, what, four years? I got to see the first year episodes on MeTV last year, and was startled to see they were in black-and-white. (All shows were B & W to me as a kid, as we didn't have a color set.) West was really sort of original, as nobody had tried melding the Western with the Bondian spy story, at least not on TV. I understand nowadays it's considered as a father to the "steampunk" genre.
Conrad was convincing, as he always was on screen. Nobody ever claimed he was an Olivier-type actor, or a DeNiro, or an Alec Guinness; and i suspect he'd have been the first to laugh if you suggested such a thing. But he always seemed to give 100% .
Oh, I almost forgot: His 1980-or-so second attempt at the spy genre, A Man Called Sloane. It was no U.N.C.L.E. or WWW, and as I recall seemed kind of low-budget.
And he did turn in a good dramatic performance in a movie around 1979, about a group of male friends dealing with marriage and divorce, etc., as they go into early middle age, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. Billy Crystal and David Ogden Stiers are in it too. Conrad plays the very athletic, very macho member of the group. The film ends with the others all having learned something and having moved forward in their lives, but he has not, and they drift away from him. Kind of affecting, as I recall.
