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| Robert Stack, whose best known for chasing
fictional criminals in "The Untouchables" and real ones in "Unsolved Mysteries,"
died at his home on Wednesday. He was 84.
Stack's wife Rosemarie found him slumped over at about 5 p.m. He died of heart failure, she said. He had undergone radiation treatment for prostate cancer in October, but his wife told Reuters that he was feeling good overall. "He had a bout with a tumor but that was gone, she said on Thursday. "It wasn't that, it was his heart. He was too weak. He wouldn't have lived through a bypass." Although he made a number of movies throughout his career, Stack was probably best known to audiences for his role as "Elliott Ness" on the 1959-63 TV drama "The Untouchables." That role cemented his fame as a dry and sometimes menacing actor and he eventually won an Emmy for the role. Stack was born into a performing arts family in Los Angeles. His great-great-grandfather opened one of the city's first theaters, and his grandparents, uncle and mother were opera singers. His father, however, "was the only Irishman in County Kerry who couldn't sing, and that's whose singing voice I got," Stack said in 1998. But the young man had a resonant speaking voice and rugged good looks, enough to catch the eye of producer Joe Pasternak when Stack ventured onto the Universal lot at age 20. He gave popular young actress Deanna Durbin her much-publicized first screen kiss in "First Love," and played a series of youthful romantic leads before leaving Hollywood to serve with the Navy as an aerial gunnery instructor in World War II. His postwar career climbed in the 1950s with meatier roles and better projects, including "The High and the Mighty" starring John Wayne in 1954. In 1957, Stack was nominated for a best supporting Oscar for "Written on the Wind," but lost the trophy to Red Buttons, for "Sayonara." In recent years he shifted to comedy, mocking his image in 1980's "Airplane!" and appearing in "1941" (1979), "Caddyshack II" (1988) and "Baseketball" (1998). His autobiography, "Straight Shooting," was published in 1979. Stack and his wife wed in 1956 and had two children, Elizabeth and Charles, both of Los Angeles. Television Credits: |
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