Here is the biography of Robert Culp:
Robert Martin Culp was born on August 16, 1930, in Oakland, California. He was the only child of attorney Crozie Culp and his wife, Bethel Collins, who worked at a Berkeley chemical company. To offset his loneliness, Culp began playacting in local theater productions. He also showed a talent for art and earned money as a cartoonist for Bay Area magazines and newspapers in high school.
Culp attended Berkeley High School and graduated in 1947. He was athletically inclined and dominated at track and field events, earning athletic scholarships to six different universities. He selected the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, primarily because of its active theater department. However, he never earned a degree, transferring to various other colleges of higher learning.
After performing in some theater in the San Francisco area, Culp moved to Seattle and then New York in 1951. He studied under Herbert Berghof and supported himself by teaching speech and phonetics. Bob eventually found work on the theater scene, making his 1953 Broadway debut in "The Prescott Proposals" with Katharine Cornell.
Culp's early career included a few live-TV dramas and his first major TV role as post-Civil War Texas Ranger "Hoby Gilman" in the western series Trackdown (1957). He earned widespread attention in the series, which received the official approval of the Texas Rangers and the State of Texas.
From there, Culp guested on a number of series dramas, including Bonanza, The Rifleman, Rawhide, The Detectives, Ben Casey, The Outer Limits, Naked City, and Combat!. He also starred in the two-part Disney family-styled program "Sammy the Way Out Seal" (1962),which was subsequently released as a feature in Europe.
In the 1960s, Culp began to seek lead and supporting work in films, co-starring with Cliff Robertson, Rod Taylor, and Jane Fonda in the sparkling Broadway-based sexcapade Sunday in New York (1963). However, he wasn't able to make a serious dent in the medium.
TV remained his best arena, and he was rewarded with the debonair series lead "Kelly Robinson", a jet-setting, pro-circuit tennis player who leads a double life as an international secret agent in I Spy (1965). He co-starred with fellow secret agent Bill Cosby, who posed as Culp's tennis trainer. The role was tailor-made for the suave, Ivy-League-looking actor.
Following the series' demise, Culp took on perhaps his most-famous and controversial film role as Natalie Wood's husband "Bob" in the titillating but ultimately teasing "flower power" era film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). He also directed the film and married his third wife, the gorgeous Eurasian actress France Nuyen, while on the set.
The late 1970s produced a flood of routine mini-movies and B-pictures, including Inside Out, Sky Riders, Breaking Point, and Flood. While he remained a sturdy and standard presence in such mini-movies as Houston, We've Got a Problem and Spectre, his better TV-movie roles were in A Cold Night's Death, Outrage, and A Cry for Help.
Bob returned to series TV as stern FBI Special Agent "Bill Maxwell" in The Greatest American Hero (1981). He also appeared in a number of series guest spots, including Hotel, Highway to Heaven, The Golden Girls, and an episode of his old buddy's show The Cosby Show.
Culp became very active in the 1960s Civil Rights movement and later became a prominent face in local civic causes. He married a fifth time to Candace Faulkner and, by her, had daughter Samantha Culp in 1982. Older sons Jason Culp and Joseph Culp became actors, while another son, Joshua Culp, entered the visual effects field. Daughter Rachel, an outré clothing designer for rock stars, was born in 1964.
In later years, Culp could be seen occasionally as Ray Romano's father-in-law on the hugely popular Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). His last film, the family drama The Assignment (2010),was unreleased at the time of his death. On March 24, 2010, the 79-year-old Culp collapsed from an apparent heart attack while walking near the lower entrance to Runyon Canyon Park, a popular hiking area in the Hollywood Hills. Found by a hiker, Culp was transported to a nearby hospital where he died from the head injuries he sustained in the fall. Five grandchildren also survive.
