Claude Akins

Claude Akins
Born	Claude Marion Akins (1926-05-25)May 25, 1926 Nelson, Georgia, U.S.
Died	January 27, 1994(1994-01-27) (aged 67) Altadena, California, U.S.
Resting place	Cremated
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1953–94
Spouse(s)	Therese Fairfield (1952-1994; his death; 3 children)

Claude Marion Akins (May 25, 1926 – January 27, 1994) was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television. Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever (or less than clever) tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series B. J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spin-off series, with Ben Cooper appearing as Waverly.

Early years

Akins was born in Nelson, Georgia, and grew up in Bedford, Indiana. He served with the US Army Signal Corps in World War II in Burma and the Philippines. After the war, he was a 1949 graduate of Northwestern University, where he studied theatre and became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.

Film career

As a film actor, Akins first appeared in 1953's From Here to Eternity. He appeared in 1954's The Caine Mutiny as a seaman and shipmate of Lee Marvin. He portrayed prisoner Joe Burdette in Rio Bravo (which also starred John Wayne, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, and Angie Dickinson), Naval Lt. Commander Farber in Don't Give Up the Ship (starring Jerry Lewis), Sgt Kolowicz in Merrill's Marauders, Rockwell W. "Rocky" Rockman in The Devil's Brigade, the Reverend Jeremiah Brown in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, outlaw Ben Lane in Comanche Station that same year, Seely Jones in A Distant Trumpet (1964), and the gorilla leader Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the last original Apes movie in 1973. He had a small part in the movie The Sea Chase with John Wayne.

Television

In television, Akins had an early appearance in Adventures of Superman (episode number 69, "Peril by Sea"), playing a villainous co-conspirator. He guest-starred on an episode of CBS's I Love Lucy. He had numerous roles in western series, including Frontier, Crusader, My Friend Flicka (three times), Boots and Saddles, Northwest Passage, The Restless Gun (four times), Sheriff of Cochise, Wagon Train (4 times), Overland Trail, The Tall Man, The Big Valley, Daniel Boone, The Legend of Jesse James, Death Valley Days, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater (4 times), The Rifleman (3 times), Rawhide, Gunsmoke (10 times), Bonanza (4 times), and The Texan (twice).

He appeared once on Empire, Laredo ("The Treasure of San Diablo"), the syndicated Pony Express (in "The Story of Julesburg" with Sebastian Cabot and James Best), and The Oregon Trail, with Rod Taylor. He was cast as Jarret Sutton in "Escape to Memphis" (1959) and as Beaudry Rawlins in "Duel on the River" (1960) in Darren McGavin's NBC series, Riverboat. He played a rodeo clown who commits murder in an episode of Rod Cameron's syndicated series, State Trooper.

Among Akins' four appearances on NBC's Laramie with series stars John Smith and Robert Fuller was in the role of former Sheriff Jim Dark in the episode "Queen of Diamonds" (September 20, 1960), with Julie London as Dark's estranged wife, a card dealer using the name "June Brown." Dark had foiled a robbery by the Reeves brothers, one of whom was killed, but his right hand was severely injured, and he can no longer handle a gun. June avoids her husband for his own protection when the outlaw brothers pursue them. Clem Reeves is portrayed by Tony Young, later cast as "Cord" in the short-lived Gunslinger series on CBS. Ultimately, the gang is captured, and the Darks are reconciled and leave Laramie by stagecoach.

Akins was featured in two episodes of the original CBS series The Twilight Zone (i.e., "The Little People" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"). He guest starred in three episodes each of Combat! (4th and 5th seasons) and The Untouchables. He appeared on Rod Cameron's early syndicated series, City Detective, Meet McGraw with Frank Lovejoy, the ABC/WB drama, The Roaring 20s, and Police Story.

In 1960, he and Marty Ingels appeared as themselves in the episode "Amateur Night" in NBC's short-lived crime drama Dan Raven, starring Skip Homeier; the show was set on the Sunset Strip of West Hollywood.

Akins' other early appearances included a role as a policeman on Alfred Hitchcock Presents in "Place of Shadows" (1956) and "Reward to Finder" (1957). Akins played another television cop, good-natured Sheriff's Detective Phillip Dix, in the first season of the Perry Mason in "The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife" (Episode 1-26) that aired March 15, 1958.

Before his signature character Sheriff Lobo, Akins appeared as owner-operator trucker Sonny Pruitt in NBC's Movin' On, from 1974 to 1976 with Frank Converse. Akins starred in over 40 episodes of Movin'On plus a made for TV movie "In Tandem." He also starred, as a Nashville Police detective named Stoney Huff and also starring Jerry Reed and Charlie Pride, in a short-lived made for TV sitcom (cancelled after four episodes) in April, 1977 called Nashville 99. He also played the owner of a small airstrip in the short-lived 1984 series The Master (episode title "Max") with Lee Van Cleef and Demi Moore. On 7 October 1984 (in "Deadly Lady," the second episode of "Murder, She Wrote," starring Angela Lansbury), Akins was introduced as Jessica Fletcher's fisherman friend Ethan Cragg, a recurring character who (unlike Tom Bosley's Sheriff Amos Tupper, introduced in the same episode) never reappeared after the popular show's first season. After becoming a recognizable name in the late 1970s, Akins did testimonial TV commercials for PoliGrip, Rollins Truck Leasing and AAMCO transmissions. In the Heat of the Night was his last TV role in 1991, where he played a kidnapper and was killed by Lonnie Jamison and Bubba Skinner.

Akins found work in the late 1980s lending his inimitable voice talents to the work safety instructional video series, Safety Shorts, in which he expounded the virtues of workplace safety to thousands of industrial employees, offering lessons on the importance of lockout/tagout procedures, personal protective equipment, and the MSDS documentation process. Akins also made a golfing video with Ron Masak titled Tom Kite and Friends.

Death

Akins died of cancer in Altadena, California on January 27, 1994.

Partial filmography

• From Here to Eternity (1953)
• The Caine Mutiny (1954)
• Shield for Murder (1954)
• The Sea Chase (1955)
• The Burning Hills (1956)
• Hot Summer Night (1957)
• The Defiant Ones (1958)
• Onionhead (1958)
• Rio Bravo (1959)
• Porgy and Bess (1959)
• Don't Give Up the Ship (1959)
• Twilight Zone (1960)
• Comanche Station (1960)
• Inherit the Wind (1960)
• Claudelle Inglish (1961)
• Merrill's Marauders (1962)
• A Distant Trumpet (1964)
• The Killers (1964)
• Return of the Seven (1966)

• Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966)
• First to Fight (1967)
• The Devil's Brigade (1968)
• The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
• A Man Called Sledge (1970)
• The Night Stalker (1972)
• Skyjacked (1972)
• Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
• Timber Tramps (1973)
• Tentacoli (1977)
• The Baron and the Kid (1984)
• Battle of the Monster Trucks (1985)
• Monster in the Closet (1986)
• Manhunt for Claude Dallas (1986)
• Dream West (1986) (TV miniseries)
• The Curse (1987)
• The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) (TV) (as Theodore Roosevelt)
• Incident at Victoria Falls (1991) (TV) (again as Theodore Roosevelt)
• Falling from Grace (1992)
• Seasons of the Heart (1993)

External links

• Claude Akins at IMDb
• Template:Amg name
• Safety Shorts