...On
The Wild Wild West, the lithe, blue-eyed Conrad starred as a government agent, working for President Ulysses S. Grant, who employed modern technology to combat villains in the 19th century. Jim West, who wore his spiffy clothes a bit too tight, rode a champion horse and had an eye for the ladies, was paired with Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin), a master of disguise.
The show was "James Bond as a cowboy," and indeed, series creator Michael Garrison had once owned the movie rights to Ian Fleming's first 007 novel,
Casino Royale. Wild Wild West lasted four seasons, on the air from September 1965 through April 1969, and attracted another legion of fans in reruns.
Conrad and stuntman Whitey Hughes usually choreographed the show's acrobatic fights (the scripts gave them an amount of time to do them, and they figured things out). Near the end of one season, Conrad said he almost was killed when he fell 14 feet onto a cement floor; he suffered what he described as a "six-inch linear fracture with a high temporal concussion."
Concerned that they would lose the star of their show, CBS executives insisted a stunt double step in for Conrad, but that practice lasted only a couple of episodes, and, after a summer of healing, he was soon back "breaking things," just as he always did.
He was one of the few actors to have been inducted into the Stuntmen's Hall of Fame.
"Ross Martin once said in an interview on the Johnny Carson show, 'Robert does his own stunts, and I do my own acting,'" he said. Asked if he took offense to that, Conrad replied: "I applauded it, it was the truth. I did my acting tongue in cheek. I didn't take any of it seriously. The last year, I didn't even read the scripts, I just read my part. And it worked."...
Robert Conrad Dead: 'Wild Wild West' Action Star Was 84 | Hollywood Reporter