- published: 06 Feb 2009
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Robert Martin Culp (August 16, 1930 – March 24, 2010) was an American actor, screenwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965–1968), the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents. Prior to that, he starred in the CBS/Four Star western series, Trackdown as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman from 1957-1959.
The 1980s brought him back to television. He starred as FBI Agent Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero and also had a recurring role as Warren Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond. In all, Culp gave hundreds of performances in a career spanning more than 50 years.
Culp was born on August 16, 1930 in Oakland, California, to Crozier Cordell Culp, an attorney, and his wife, Bethel Martin (née Collins) Culp. He graduated from Berkeley High School, where he was a pole vaulter and took second place at the 1947 CIF California State Meet.
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and author. Cosby's start in stand-up comedy began at the hungry i in San Francisco, and was followed by his landing a starring role in the 1960s television show I Spy. During the show's first two seasons, he was also a regular on the children's television series The Electric Company.
Using the Fat Albert character developed during his stand-up routines, Cosby created, produced, and hosted the animated comedy television series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, a show that ran from 1972 to 1985, centering on a group of young friends growing up in an urban area. Throughout the 1970s, Cosby starred in a number of films, occasionally returning to film later in his career. After attending Temple University in the 1960s, he received his bachelor's degree there in 1971. In 1973 he received a master's degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and in 1976 he earned his Doctor of Education degree, also from UMass. His dissertation discussed the use of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as a teaching tool in elementary schools.
David Bruce Cassidy (born April 12, 1950) is an American actor, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is widely known for his role as Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family, which led to him becoming one of pop culture's most celebrated teen idols and pop singers of the 1970s. He has since had a career in both acting and music.
Cassidy was born at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City, the son of singer and actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. His father was of half-Irish and half-German ancestry, and his mother was of mostly Colonial American descent, along with smaller amounts of Irish and Swiss. Some of his mother's ancestors were among the founders of Newark, New Jersey.
As his parents were frequently touring on the road, he spent his early years being raised by his maternal grandparents in a middle-class neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1956, he found out from neighbors' children that his parents had been divorced for over two years and had not told him. David's parents had decided because he was at such a young age, it would be better for his emotional stability to not discuss it at that time. They were gone often with theater productions and home life remained the same.