Actor Don Adams dead at 82
Played secret agent Maxwell Smart in ‘Get Smart’
LOS ANGELES - Don Adams, the wry-voiced comedian who starred as the fumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the 1960s television spoof of James Bond movies, “Get Smart,” has died. He was 82.
Adams died of a lung infection late Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his friend and former agent Bruce Tufeld said Monday, adding the actor broke his hip a year ago and had been in ill health since.
As the inept Agent 86 of the super-secret federal agency C.O.N.T.R.O.L., Adams captured TV viewers with his antics in combatting the evil agents of C.H.A.O.S. When his explanations failed to convince the villains or his boss, he tried another tack: “Would you believe ... ?” It became a national catchphrase.
Smart was also prone to spilling things on the desk or person of his boss—the chief (actor Edward Platt). Smart’s apologetic “Sorry about that, chief” also entered the American lexicon. The spy gadgets, which aped those of the Bond movies, were a popular feature, especially the pre-cell-phone telephone in a shoe.
Smart’s beautiful partner, Agent 99, played by Barbara Felden, was as brainy as he was dense, and a plot romance led to marriage and the birth of twins later in the series.
Adams, who had been under contract to NBC, was lukewarm about doing a spy spoof. When he learned that Mel Brooks and Buck Henry had written the pilot script, he accepted immediately. “Get Smart” debuted on NBC in September 1965 and scored No. 12 among the season’s most-watched series and No. 22 in its second season.
“Get Smart” twice won the Emmy for best comedy series with three Emmys for Adams as comedy actor.
Survivor of Guadalcanal, voice of Inspector Gadget
CBS picked up the show but the ratings fell off as the jokes seemed repetitive, and it was canceled after four seasons. The show lived on in syndication and a cartoon series. In 1995 Fox network revived the series with Smart as chief and 99 as a congresswoman. It lasted seven episodes.
Adams never had another showcase to display his comic talent.
“It was a special show that became a cult classic of sorts, and I made a lot of money for it,” he remarked of “Get Smart” in a 1995 interview. “But it also hindered me career-wise because I was typed. The character was so strong, particularly because of that distinctive voice, that nobody could picture me in any other type of role.”
He was born Donald James Yarmy in New York City on April 13, 1926, Tufeld said, although some sources say 1923 or 1927. The actor’s father was a Hungarian Jew who ran a few small restaurants in the Bronx.
In a 1959 interview Adams said he never cared about being funny as a kid: “Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all. I did movie star impressions as a kid in high school. Somehow they just got out of hand.”
In 1941, he dropped out of school to join the Marines, lying about his age. In Guadalcanal he survived the deadly blackwater fever and was returned to the States to become a drill instructor, acquiring the clipped delivery that served him well as a comedian.
After the war he worked in New York as a commercial artist by day, doing standup comedy in clubs at night, taking the surname of his first wife, Adelaide Adams. His following grew, and soon he was appearing on the Ed Sullivan and late night TV shows. Bill Dana, who had helped him develop comedy routines, cast him as his sidekick on Dana’s Jose Jiminez show. That led to the NBC contract and “Get Smart.”
Adams, who married and divorced three times and had seven children, served as the voice for the popular cartoon series, “Inspector Gadget.” In 1980, he appeared as Maxwell Smart in a feature movie, “The Nude Bomb,” about a madman whose bomb destroyed people’s clothing.
Tufeld said funeral arrangements were incomplete.
