ROBERT CULPAmerican actor Robert Culp died after collapsing in the street near his Hollywood home on 24 March, 2010. He was 79.Mr Culp's major claim to fame was his role in the television adventure comedy I Spy alongside Bill Cosby.Throughout the show's run from 1965 to 1968, Mr Culp - a talented tennis player in real-life - played spy Kelly Robinson whose cover was the pretence that he was a tennis player.Mr Cosby played fellow spy Alexander Scott who pretended to be Robinson's trainer.The series broke new ground on American television for featuring a black actor in the leading role for the first time. Mr Culp also wrote scripts for the series.The two co-stars were also involved in civil rights causes, and when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 they joined the striking workers King had been organising.After I Spy came his most prestigious film role, playing Bob in the comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice which lampooned the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon completed the starring line-up.Robert Martin Culp was born in 1930 and trained at the University of Washington's drama school.He got his start in television in the late 1950s before appearing in TheMan From Uncle and Outer Limits. Among his notable later performances was as an American President in 1993's The Pelican Brief. He also had a recurring role in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.He was married five times and had five children.
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