Caption | Stack in January 1981 |
---|---|
Birth name | Robert Langford Modini Stack |
Birth date | January 13, 1919 |
Birth place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Death date | May 14, 2003 |
Death place | Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1939–2003 |
Spouse |
By the time he was twenty, Stack had achieved minor fame as a sportsman. He was an avid polo player and shooter. He and his brother won the International Outboard Motor Championships, in Venice, Italy; and, at age 16, he became a member of the All-American Skeet Team. He set two world records in skeet shooting and became National Champion. In 1971, he was inducted into the National Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame. Stack was a regular columnist for Gun World magazine.
Stack won acclaim for his next role, The Mortal Storm (1940). He played a young man who joins the Nazi party. This film was among the first to speak out against Adolf Hitler. As a youth, Stack admitted that he had a crush on Carole Lombard and in 1942 he appeared with her in To Be or Not To Be. He admitted he was terrified going into this role. He credits Lombard with giving him many tips on acting and with being his mentor. Lombard was killed in a plane crash shortly before the film was released.
]] During World War II, Stack served as gunnery instructor in the United States Navy. He continued his film career and appeared in such films as Fighter Squadron (1948), A Date with Judy (1948) and Bwana Devil (considered the first color, American 3-D feature film), (1952). In 1954, Stack was given his most important movie role. He appeared opposite John Wayne in The High and the Mighty. Stack played the pilot of an airliner which comes apart under stress after the airliner encounters engine trouble.
In 1957, Stack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Written on the Wind.
Stack depicted the crimefighting Eliot Ness in the television drama The Untouchables (1959–1963). The show portrayed the ongoing battle between gangsters and federal agents in a Prohibition-era Chicago. The show brought Stack a best actor Emmy Award in 1960.
Stack also starred in three other drama series, rotating the lead with Tony Franciosa and Gene Barry in the lavish The Name of the Game (1968–1971), Most Wanted, (1976) and Strike Force (1981). Interestingly, in The Name of the Game, he played a former federal agent turned true-crime journalist, evoking memories of his role as Ness. In both Most Wanted and Strike Force he played a tough, incorruptible police captain commanding an elite squad of special investigators, also evoking the Ness role. Eventually, he would reprise the role in a 1991 television movie, The Return of Eliot Ness.
(1956)]] Known for his steadfast, humorless demeanor, he made fun of his own persona in comedies such as 1941 (1979), Airplane! (1980), Caddyshack II (1988), Beavis and Butthead Do America (1996) and BASEketball (1998). He also provided the voice for the character Ultra Magnus in The Transformers: The Movie (1986).
Stack appeared in the television mini-series Hollywood Wives in 1985, and appeared in several episodes of the popular primetime soap opera Falcon Crest in 1986. Ironically, Stack's series Strike Force was scheduled opposite Falcon Crest, where it quickly folded.
He began hosting Unsolved Mysteries in 1987. He thought very highly of the interactive nature of the show, saying that it created a "symbiotic" relationship between viewer and program, and that the hotline was a great crime-solving tool. Unsolved Mysteries aired from 1987 to 2002, first as specials in 1987 (Stack did not host all the specials), then as a regular series on NBC (1988–1997), then on CBS (1997–1999) and finally on Lifetime (2001–2002). Stack served as the show's host during its entire original series run.
For a brief period between 2001–2002, Stack played the voice of Stoat Muldoon, a character featured on the computer-animated television series, Butt-Ugly Martians on Nickelodeon. The show was cancelled due to poor ratings.
Stack underwent radiation therapy for prostate cancer in October 2002. He died of a heart attack on May 14, 2003 at the age of 84.
He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. He also is survived by his son, Charles Robert Stack, who is retired as well.
‡ Denotes he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Category:1919 births Category:2003 deaths Category:American film actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American television actors Category:American television personalities Category:American voice actors Category:Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:United States Navy sailors Category:University of Southern California alumni Category:The Untouchables Category:Bridgewater State University alumni
de:Robert Stack es:Robert Stack fr:Robert Stack it:Robert Stack he:רוברט סטאק ro:Robert Stack nl:Robert Stack ja:ロバート・スタック no:Robert Stack pl:Robert Stack pt:Robert Stack sh:Robert Stack fi:Robert Stack sv:Robert Stack tl:Robert Stack uk:Роберт СтекThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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