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Don Adams (April 13, 1923 –
September 25, 2005) was an American actor, comedian and director. In his five
decades on television, he was best known as Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) in the
television situation comedy Get Smart (1965–1970, 1995), which he also sometimes
directed and wrote. Adams won three consecutive Emmy Awards for his portrayal of
Smart (1967–1969). He provided the voices for the animated series Tennessee
Tuxedo and His Tales (1963–1966) and Inspector Gadget (1983–1986) as their title
characters. He voiced Sid Pickles in all episodes of Spike & Mike (1993–1999),
and two follow up films, Spike & Mike Movie and Spike and Mike: Got Hostaged.
****
Background Information
Born
Donald James Yarmy
April 13, 1923
New York City, New York, U.S.
Died
September 25, 2005 (aged 82)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death
Lung Infection
Nationality
American
Occupation
Actor, comedian, game show
panelist, director, voice artist
Years active
1954–2005
Spouses
Adelaide Efantis (m. 1947–1958)
Dorothy Bracken (m. 1960–1976)
Judy Luciano (m. 1977–1990)
****
Early
life
Adams was born Donald James Yarmy
in Manhattan,[1] son of William Yarmy and his wife Consuelo Dieter. His father,
a restaurant manager, was Hungarian and Jewish and his mother was Irish and
Roman Catholic. Adams and his brother (actor Dick Yarmy) were each raised in the
religion of one parent: Don in the Catholic faith of their mother, and Dick in
the Jewish faith of their father.[2][3]
Dropping out of New York City's
DeWitt Clinton High School, Adams worked as a theater usher.[4] He enlisted in
the United States Marine Corps in 1941 together with his twin-brother cousins,
William and Robert Karvelas.[1] The three were assigned to the Third Marines in
Samoa until Adams was sent as a replacement to the Battle of Guadalcanal, where
he was the only survivor of his platoon.[5] His survival, despite his company's
near 90% fatality rate, was due to his contracting blackwater fever early in the
campaign. He was evacuated and spent over a year in a Navy hospital in
Wellington, New Zealand.[1][6] After his recovery, he served as a Marine drill
instructor in the United States.[7][8]
Following his discharge, Adams held
a series of jobs. During a Canadian television interview, he said that he had
faked college credentials and an engineering background to be hired as an
engineer designing underground sewers. His lack of training was not discovered
for six months.[citation needed]
He later worked as a comic, taking
the stage name of Adams after marrying singer Adelaide (Dell) Efantis, who
performed as Adelaide Adams. They had four daughters, and Adams also worked as a
commercial artist and restaurant cashier to help support his family. When they
divorced, he kept Adams as his stage name because acting auditions were often
held in alphabetical order.[1]
Career
The
Bill Dana Show
Adams' work on television began in
1954, when he won on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts with a stand-up comedy act
written by boyhood friend Bill Dana. In addition to appearing on numerous
comedy, variety, and dramatic series, Adams had a role on the NBC sitcom The
Bill Dana Show (1963–1965), as a bumbling hotel detective named Byron Glick — a
character Adams created that was the precursor to the role he would play as
"Maxwell Smart" on Get Smart. (The hotel manager was played by Jonathan Harris
who later did a guest role on Get Smart in 1970.)[citation needed]
Get
Smart
Creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry,
prompted by producers Dan Melnick and David Susskind,[1] wrote Get Smart as the
comedic answer to the successful 1960s spy television dramas such as The Man
from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, I Spy and others. They were asked to write a
spoof that combined elements from two of the most popular film series at the
time: the James Bond and Pink Panther (Inspector Clouseau) movies.
Get Smart had been written for Tom
Poston, to be piloted on CBS; when CBS turned it down, the show was picked up by
NBC, which cast Adams in the role because he was already under contract.[1] When
Get Smart debuted in 1965, it was an immediate hit. Barbara Feldon co-starred as
Max's young and attractive partner (later wife), Agent 99, where she had a great
chemistry with Adams, throughout the show's run, despite a 10-year age
difference.
Adams gave the character a clipped,
unique speaking style. Feldon said, "Part of the pop fervor for Agent 86, was
because Don did such an extreme portrayal of the character that it made it easy
to imitate."[citation needed] Adams created many popular catch-phrases (some of
which were in his act prior to the show), including "Sorry about that, Chief",
"Would you believe ...?", "Ahh ... the old [noun] in the [noun] trick. That's
the [number]th time this [month/week]." (Sometimes the description of the trick
was simply, "Ahh... the old [noun] trick."), and "Missed it by 'that much.'"
These helped make the series a hit in over 100 countries.[citation needed]
In addition to acting, Adams also
produced and directed several episodes of the show. Off the set, he occasionally
feuded with Jay Sandrich, who served as writer. He was nominated for Emmys four
seasons in a row, between 1966 and 1969, for Outstanding Continued Performance
by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series. He won the award three times.
The show moved to CBS for its final season, with ratings declining as spy series
went out of fashion. Get Smart was canceled in 1970, after 138
episodes.[citation needed]
Typecasting
Adams was happy about the show's
cancellation, since he wanted to move on to other projects. His efforts after
Get Smart were less successful, including the comedy series The Partners
(1971–1972), a self-titled game show called Don Adams' Screen Test (1975–1976)
and three attempts to revive the Get Smart series in the 1980s. Even his movie,
The Nude Bomb, was a box-office failure. Adams had been typecast as Maxwell
Smart and unable to escape the image, though he did have success as the voice of
Inspector Gadget.
He earned most of his income from
his work on stage and in nightclubs. As Adams had chosen a low salary combined
with a one-third ownership stake in Get Smart during the show's production, he
received a regular income for many years due to the show's popularity in
reruns.[1]
Don
Adams' Screen Test
Don Adams' Screen Test was a
syndicated game show which lasted 26 episodes during the 1975–1976 season. The
show was done in two 15-minute segments, in each of which a randomly selected
audience member would 'act' to re-create a scene from a Hollywood movie as
accurately as possible. Such moments as the bar scene from The Lost Weekend, the
duel scene from The Prisoner of Zenda or the beach scene from From Here to
Eternity were used, with Adams directing and a celebrity guest playing the other
lead in the scene. Hokey effects, bad timing, forgotten lines, prop failures and
the celebrity's "ad libs" were maximized for comic effect as the audience
watched "bloopers" and "outtakes" as they happened. At the end of the program,
the final, serious, fully edited version of the "screen test" of each of the two
contestants would be played, with audience reaction determining the winner, who
would receive a trip to Hollywood and a real screen test for a motion picture.
Voice-over and later work
Adams was the voice of the title
character in Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963–1966), but he was more famous
as the voice of Inspector Gadget in the initial run of that television series
(1983–1986) and the Christmas special, as well as in later reprises; he even
voiced himself in animated form for a guest shot in an episode of
Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "The Exterminator," which first aired
on CBS October 6, 1973.
Starting in 1982, Adams resurrected
the Maxwell Smart character for a series of television commercials for Savemart,
a retail chain that sold audio and video equipment.[9]
He attempted a situation-comedy
comeback in Canada with Check it Out! in 1985; the show ran for three years in
Canada, but it was not successful in the United States. The show also starred
Gordon Clapp, an unknown star at the time, who developed a rapport with Adams.
In an A&E Biography[citation needed], Adams said that he made more money working
on the series, better than on Get Smart. He reprised his Maxwell Smart role on
Get Smart for Fox in 1995, which co-starred Barbara Feldon and rising star Andy
Dick as Max's & 99's only son. Unlike the original version, this show did not
appeal to younger viewers and it was canceled after only seven episodes. He
later went on to voice the character of Principal Hickley in the
late-1990s/early-2000s Disney cartoon, Pepper Ann.
In 2003, Adams joined a Get Smart
tribute at the Museum of Television and Radio. Also appearing at the convention
were surviving stars of Get Smart: Barbara Feldon, Bernie Kopell and Dick
Gautier.[citation needed]
Adams stated in interviews that his
famous "clippy" voice characterization was an exaggeration of the speaking style
of actor William Powell. Occasionally, he also enjoyed doing a more explicit
impersonation of Ronald Colman.
Adams was the voice of Brain the
Dog in the end credits for the film version of Inspector Gadget in 1999.
Personal life
Adams was married: to Adelaide
Efantis Adams, Dorothy Bracken Adams and Judy Luciano.[6] His brother, Richard
Paul Yarmy, also known as Dick Yarmy (February 14, 1932 – May 5, 1992), was an
actor. His sister, Gloria (Yarmy) Burton, was a writer.[10]
Adams was an avid gambler;
according to his longtime friend Bill Dana, "He could be very devoted to his
family if you reminded him about it, [but] Don's whole life was focused around
gambling."[11]
Death
Don Adams died on September 25,
2005 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California from a lung
infection.[6] Before he died, he joked about not wanting a mournful funeral,
preferring, he said, to have his friends get together "and bring me back to
life."[12] Among his eulogists were his decades-long friends Barbara Feldon, Don
Rickles, James Caan, and Bill Dana, and his son-in-law, actor Jim Beaver
(widower of Adams's actress-daughter Cecily Adams). Although Adams had expressed
a desire to be buried with military rites at Arlington National Cemetery, he was
instead interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.[13] His
non-military funeral mass was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly
Hills. Adams was survived by three of his four daughters from his first
marriage, two children from his second marriage, and a daughter from his third
marriage;[6] he was also survived by five grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren.[1]
References
1.^ a b c d e f g h Martin, Douglas
(September 27, 2005). "Don Adams, Television's Maxwell Smart, Dies at 82". New
York Times. "Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the 1960s sitcom "Get
Smart," combining clipped, decisive diction with appalling, hilarious
ineptitude, died on Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 82."
2.^ http://www.ilovegetsmart.com/donbio.html
3.^ http://infohungary.freeblog.hu/tags/the/
4.^ Buckman, Adam. "HE'S AGENT
86'D - 'GET SMART' STAR DON ADAMS DIES", The New York Post, September 27, 2005.
Accessed September 14, 2009. "Graduated from DeWitt Clinton HS in The Bronx."
5.^ Bergan, Ronald (September 30,
2005). "Don Adams". The Guardian (London).
6.^ a b c d Bernstein, Adam
(September 27, 2005). "Actor Don Adams Dies at 82; Starred in 'Get Smart' in
'60s". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
7.^ http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-A-Co/Adams-Don.html
8.^ "U.S. Marine Don Adams". Truth
or Fiction. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
9.^ New York Times, January 20,
1982, "Advertising; Don Adams Gets Smart for Savemart Spots"
10.^ Don Adams at the Internet
Movie Database
11.^ "Don Adams: 1923-2005".
People. October 10, 2005. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
12.^ "Don Adams jokes about
dying". Retrieved 2010-11-05.
13.^ "Don Adams". Find a Grave.
Retrieved August 30, 2010.
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