1910-03-17 ( 115 years old ) in New York City, New York, USA
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.
Movies
Hey Good Lookin'
1982-10-01
American Pop
1981-02-13
Mafia on the Bounty
1980-03-07
Cat in the Cage
1978-08-02
Coonskin
1975-08-20
Johnny Firecloud
1975-08-01
Crossfire
1975-03-24
Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
1974-11-01
The Don Is Dead
1973-11-14
The Slams
1973-09-26
Heavy Traffic
1973-08-08
Frasier, the Sensuous Lion
1973-06-19
The Mechanic
1972-10-06
The Wild Country
1970-12-16
The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle
1967-06-21
The Greatest Story Ever Told
1965-04-09
The Sword of Ali Baba
1965-04-01
Those Calloways
1965-01-28
Follow That Dream
1962-04-11
Atlantis: The Lost Continent
1961-05-03
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
1960-02-03
The Jayhawkers!
1959-10-15
Day of the Outlaw
1959-07-01
Apache Territory
1958-09-01
Teenage Cave Man
1958-07-01
Machine-Gun Kelly
1958-05-01
The Brothers Karamazov
1958-02-20
Cowboy
1958-01-23
Ride Out for Revenge
1957-10-31
Run of the Arrow
1957-09-05
Appointment with a Shadow
1957-09-01
Not One Shall Die
1957-01-01
Reprisal!
1956-11-02
The White Squaw
1956-11-01
The Ten Commandments
1956-10-05
Pillars of the Sky
1956-09-14
Santiago
1956-07-13
Johnny Moccasin
1956-06-06
The Lone Ranger
1956-02-25
Shack Out on 101
1955-12-04
Hold Back Tomorrow
1955-11-01
The Man from Laramie
1955-08-19
Strange Lady in Town
1955-04-12
They Rode West
1954-12-04
Drum Beat
1954-11-10
Passion
1954-10-06
Valley of the Kings
1954-07-21
King of the Khyber Rifles
1953-12-23
Fighter Attack
1953-11-29
All the Brothers Were Valiant
1953-11-13
Arrowhead
1953-08-03
The Desert Song
1953-05-30
Raiders of the Seven Seas
1953-05-27
Split Second
1953-05-02
The Big Sky
1952-08-19
Holiday for Sinners
1952-07-25
Kiss of Death
1947-08-27
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