
Frank DeKova parlayed a sinister scowl, piercing eyes and an all-around menacing attitude into a long career of playing cold-blooded trigger-men, rampaging Indian chiefs, brutal Mexican army officers and the like. So it would probably come as a shock to those who know his work to discover that, before he became an actor, he was--of all things--a schoolteacher. Born in New York in 1910, DeKova gave up teaching for the stage, and played in many Shakespearean productions before getting work on Broadway. One of his first starring roles was in the classic detective play "Detective Story", which got him noticed and brought to Hollywood. He debuted in Viva Zapata! (1952) as the devious Mexican colonel who sets up Zapata's assassination. For the next several years he played an assortment of gangsters, killers, gunfighters and Indians--with time out to play a prehistoric patriarch in Roger Corman's campy Teenage Cave Man (1958)--and did much television work, including a standout job as a Mafia hit-man assigned to kill Elliot Ness in Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse: The Untouchables: Part 1 (1959). The role for which he will be most remembered, however, is probably the one that was his most atypical: the scheming, somewhat untrustworthy but very funny Hekawi Chief Wild Eagle, the partner to Forrest Tucker's Sgt. O'Rourke in O'Rourke's various schemes to make money, in the western comedy series F Troop (1965). He showed a previously unknown talent for comedy and managed to steal most of the scenes he was in from such veterans as Tucker and Larry Storch. He died in his sleep in 1981.

The Islanders

大草原の小さな家

アンタッチャブル

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Toma

十戒

The Rockford Files

超人ハルク

Rawhide

Reprisal!

ララミーから来た男

Hawaii Five-O

死の接吻

The Rifleman

Not One Shall Die

The Lawless Years

Daniel Boone

American Pop

Police Story

The Third Man

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin

77 Sunset Strip

Maverick

無法の拳銃

The High Chaparral

メカニック

Gunsmoke

Laramie

The Brothers Karamazov

The White Squaw

Thriller

Cannon

Wagon Train

The Big Sky

The Desert Song

Peter Gunn

Heavy Traffic

Baretta

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Slams

They Rode West

Apache Territory

われらキャロウェイ

Hold Back Tomorrow

カウボーイ

Route 66

Run, Joe, Run

The Tall Man

Split Second

F Troop

The Swiss Family Robinson

Outlaws

Police Woman

The Deputy

The Detectives

恋愛専科

The Lone Ranger

Follow That Dream

Coonskin

Cheyenne

The Jayhawkers!

Drum Beat

Run of the Arrow

The Wild Country

The Gallant Men

Black Saddle

Martin Kane, Private Eye

Gunslinger

Shack Out on 101

Arrowhead

All the Brothers Were Valiant

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond

The Sword of Ali Baba

The Don Is Dead

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse

Machine-Gun Kelly

King of the Khyber Rifles

Raiders of the Seven Seas

Frasier, the Sensuous Lion

The Dakotas

Holiday for Sinners

Ben Casey

Lawman

Hey Good Lookin'

Ride Out for Revenge

The Alaskans

Appointment with a Shadow

FBIアメリカ連邦警察

Kraft Suspense Theatre

Pillars of the Sky

Santiago

Passion

Hawaiian Eye

Atlantis: The Lost Continent

Surfside 6

Johnny Staccato

Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers

The Walter Winchell File

Johnny Firecloud

Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans

The Rebel

Valley of the Kings

Fighter Attack

Strange Lady in Town

Teenage Cave Man

Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes

Cat in the Cage

Mafia on the Bounty

Crossfire

The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle

The Roaring 20's

The Troubleshooters