- Feb 4, 2002
- 2,227
- 2
- 38
- 39
Get Smart" Star Adams Dies
Don Adams once confessed to hating Get Smart. He was about the only one.
The former standup comic who donned a trench coat, launched a catch phrase ("Would you believe...?") and won three Emmys as blundering, yet self-assured spy Maxwell Smart on the 1960s TV comedy died late Sunday of a lung infection. He was 82.
Adams' friend and former agent, Bruce Tufeld, confirmed the death Monday, adding that the actor had been in poor health since breaking his hip a year earlier.
Adams had also been suffering from lymphoma for several years.
His death silences his other signature creation: Inspector Gadget. Adams was the voice behind the blundering, yet fearless crime fighter from the cartoon character's inception in 1983.
It is Maxwell Smart, though, for whom Adams will be first remembered.
Adams starred as Smart--Agent 86 to his fellow CONTROL operatives--in the 1965-1970 sitcom. From 1967-69, he earned three straight best comedy series actor Emmys. He went on to play Smart in the 1980 theatrical bomb The Nude Bomb, the 1989 TV-movie, Get Smart Again and the short-lived 1995 revival series, also titled Get Smart, with Andy Dick as his offspring. Even as a TV pitchman, for Chief Auto Parts and others, Adams played a Smart-esque character.
In 1980, Adams told People he was too Smart for his own good.
"Producers felt I couldn't do anything else," he said in the magazine. "Every time I've gotten a script it's another Maxwell Smart-type character."
Even worse, Smart wasn't a character of which Adams was particularly fond. In People, he admitted he wanted to throw his TV set through a window after watching the first few episodes--"I couldn't stand the laugh track," he said.
But in a decade marked by the low-watt humor of The Beverly Hillbillies and I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart was the bright bulb, even if its title character was on the dim side.
From the minds of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart pitted Smart's CONTROL in a never-ending battle of good versus the evil of KAOS.
The show was a Top 25 hit for NBC its first two seasons. The show moved to CBS in 1969, ending its run a year later in true jump-the-shark fashion, with Smart and lady-love Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) welcoming the birth of twins.
Adams' post-Smart career was marked by numerous cruises on The Love Boat (he even boarded the original 1976 TV-movie), and several failed series, including Don Adams' Screen Test (1974), in which wannabe actors were given their shots at big-screen stardom.
It would take the debut of the syndicated animated series Inspector Gadget to free Adams somewhat from Agent 86's telephone shoes. Only older audiences knew Adams was riffing on Smart; younger audiences thought he was creating Gadget just for them.
The original Gadget series was produced from 1983-85. It spawned several videos and spinoffs that kept Adams busy through the 1990s. It also inspired a live-action franchise. Adams didn't appear in the movies, but he did lend a voice to the first film, 1999's Inspector Gadget, starring Matthew Broderick.
Born Donald James Yarmy on April 13, 1923, in New York City, the streamlined Don Adams broke into showbiz in the 1940s as a comic, following a stint in World War II as a Marine. His career took off in 1954 when his jokes got the applause meter moving on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, the Star Search of its day.
His sitcom debut came in 1963 with a supporting role in The Bill Dana Show. Adams also made his mark that year as the voice of the titular penguin in the CBS Saturday morning cartoon series, Tennessee Tuxedo. Adams married and divorced three times. His daughter, Cecily Adams, a casting director and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recurring guest star, died March 3, 2004 at age 39 of lung cancer.
Don Adams once confessed to hating Get Smart. He was about the only one.
The former standup comic who donned a trench coat, launched a catch phrase ("Would you believe...?") and won three Emmys as blundering, yet self-assured spy Maxwell Smart on the 1960s TV comedy died late Sunday of a lung infection. He was 82.
Adams' friend and former agent, Bruce Tufeld, confirmed the death Monday, adding that the actor had been in poor health since breaking his hip a year earlier.
Adams had also been suffering from lymphoma for several years.
His death silences his other signature creation: Inspector Gadget. Adams was the voice behind the blundering, yet fearless crime fighter from the cartoon character's inception in 1983.
It is Maxwell Smart, though, for whom Adams will be first remembered.
Adams starred as Smart--Agent 86 to his fellow CONTROL operatives--in the 1965-1970 sitcom. From 1967-69, he earned three straight best comedy series actor Emmys. He went on to play Smart in the 1980 theatrical bomb The Nude Bomb, the 1989 TV-movie, Get Smart Again and the short-lived 1995 revival series, also titled Get Smart, with Andy Dick as his offspring. Even as a TV pitchman, for Chief Auto Parts and others, Adams played a Smart-esque character.
In 1980, Adams told People he was too Smart for his own good.
"Producers felt I couldn't do anything else," he said in the magazine. "Every time I've gotten a script it's another Maxwell Smart-type character."
Even worse, Smart wasn't a character of which Adams was particularly fond. In People, he admitted he wanted to throw his TV set through a window after watching the first few episodes--"I couldn't stand the laugh track," he said.
But in a decade marked by the low-watt humor of The Beverly Hillbillies and I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart was the bright bulb, even if its title character was on the dim side.
From the minds of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart pitted Smart's CONTROL in a never-ending battle of good versus the evil of KAOS.
The show was a Top 25 hit for NBC its first two seasons. The show moved to CBS in 1969, ending its run a year later in true jump-the-shark fashion, with Smart and lady-love Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) welcoming the birth of twins.
Adams' post-Smart career was marked by numerous cruises on The Love Boat (he even boarded the original 1976 TV-movie), and several failed series, including Don Adams' Screen Test (1974), in which wannabe actors were given their shots at big-screen stardom.
It would take the debut of the syndicated animated series Inspector Gadget to free Adams somewhat from Agent 86's telephone shoes. Only older audiences knew Adams was riffing on Smart; younger audiences thought he was creating Gadget just for them.
The original Gadget series was produced from 1983-85. It spawned several videos and spinoffs that kept Adams busy through the 1990s. It also inspired a live-action franchise. Adams didn't appear in the movies, but he did lend a voice to the first film, 1999's Inspector Gadget, starring Matthew Broderick.
Born Donald James Yarmy on April 13, 1923, in New York City, the streamlined Don Adams broke into showbiz in the 1940s as a comic, following a stint in World War II as a Marine. His career took off in 1954 when his jokes got the applause meter moving on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, the Star Search of its day.
His sitcom debut came in 1963 with a supporting role in The Bill Dana Show. Adams also made his mark that year as the voice of the titular penguin in the CBS Saturday morning cartoon series, Tennessee Tuxedo. Adams married and divorced three times. His daughter, Cecily Adams, a casting director and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recurring guest star, died March 3, 2004 at age 39 of lung cancer.
