Frank De Kova
Acting
- Born:
- 1910-03-17
- Died:
- 1981-10-15
- Place of birth:
- New York City, New York, USA
Biography
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.
Known For
Filmography
Hey Good Lookin'
American Pop
Mafia on the Bounty
Cat in the Cage
The Incredible Hulk
The Swiss Family Robinson
Coonskin
Johnny Firecloud
Crossfire
Baretta
Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
The Rockford Files
Police Woman
Little House on the Prairie
Run, Joe, Run
The Don Is Dead
Toma
The Slams
Heavy Traffic
Frasier, the Sensuous Lion
Police Story
The Mechanic
Cannon
The Wild Country
Love, American Style
Hawaii Five-O
It Takes a Thief
The High Chaparral
The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle
The F.B.I.
F Troop
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Sword of Ali Baba
Those Calloways
Daniel Boone
Kraft Suspense Theatre
The Greatest Show on Earth
The Dakotas
The Gallant Men
Follow That Dream
Ben Casey
Atlantis: The Lost Continent
Gunslinger
The Roaring 20's
Route 66
Surfside 6
The Islanders
Outlaws
Thriller
The Tall Man
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
The Detectives
The Jayhawkers!
The Untouchables
Hawaiian Eye
The Alaskans
The Rebel
The Third Man
Laramie
The Deputy
The Troubleshooters
Johnny Staccato
Day of the Outlaw
The Lawless Years
Black Saddle
Rawhide
77 Sunset Strip
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse
Lawman
The Rifleman
Peter Gunn
Apache Territory
Teenage Cave Man
Machine-Gun Kelly
The Brothers Karamazov
Cowboy
Ride Out for Revenge
The Walter Winchell File
The Californians
Maverick
Wagon Train
Run of the Arrow
Appointment with a Shadow
Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans
Not One Shall Die
The Ten Commandments
Reprisal!
The White Squaw
Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers
Pillars of the Sky
Santiago
Johnny Moccasin
The Lone Ranger
Shack Out on 101
Hold Back Tomorrow
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Cheyenne
Gunsmoke
The Man from Laramie
Strange Lady in Town
They Rode West
Drum Beat
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin
Passion
Valley of the Kings
King of the Khyber Rifles
Fighter Attack
All the Brothers Were Valiant
Arrowhead
The Desert Song
Raiders of the Seven Seas
Split Second
The Big Sky
Holiday for Sinners
Martin Kane, Private Eye
Kiss of Death