TVLand's "Get Smart" Actor Bios
The info below was "borrowed" from TVLand's now defunct "Get Smart" Web site until they want it back. And that will hopefully include a return of "Get Smart" to their schedule.

For a complete list of GS Actor and Character Bios, visit http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cast.html. While you're there, don't miss the Control Roster at http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cagents.html

Don Adams

Donald Yarmy was born on April 13, 1926 in New York City. He began his career in show business as a stand-up comic and was a winner on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts in 1954. Adams' stand-up routine gained popularity and led to roles on The Perry Como Show. and The Bill Dana Show. But Adams' breakout role is clearly that of Maxwell Smart on Get Smart.

After Get Smart, Adams worked on the series The Partners, playing a cop. Unfortunately the show was plagued with troubles and went through many changes to both cast and crew before it finally aired in 1971. It was cancelled soon after.

Somewhat more successful was Don Adams' Screen Test in 1973. That show featured Hollywood hopefuls performing scenes opposite some of the industry's biggest and brightest stars (including Ernest Borgnine, Mel Brooks, Milton Berle, Bob Newhart, and Greg Morris). But it wasn't until the Canadian produced low-budget Check It Out That Adams achieved another sit-com success.

Don Adams is also a director of some note. He won the Clio Award for outstanding commercial direction of an advertisement in 1971. It was for his Aurora Skittle Pool commercial, in which he was also the lead actor.

Don Adams' distinctive voice has given rise to many voiceover roles including the classics Tennessee Tuxedo and Inspector Gadget.

Adams continues to make guest appearances and recently re-teamed with Get Smart co-star Bernie Kopell to re-create their Smart and Seigfried personas for the Johnson and Johnson company in an ad for blood sugar detection.

Barbara Feldon

Barbara Feldon, born Barbara Hall, says she found companionship as a child in books and ballet. While working as a chorus girl early in her career, Feldon (a drama student at Carnegie Tech) appeared on the game show The $64,000 Question (which she won with the category Shakespeare.) Later she became a fashion model and commercial actress. A television commercial for Top Brass Hair Dressing for Men aimed at the "tigers" in the audience launched the rest of her career. There was something about her sultry gaze which caught the eye of men everywhere. Barbara insists that now well-known come-hither look was caused by near sightedness.

After playing opposite George C. Scott in East Side/West Side(1963), she was cast as a spy inMr Broadway with Craig Stevens (1962-3). This lead directly to the role of Agent 99 in Get Smart. With Get Smart newly under her belt, Feldon, appeared in the first 5 episodes of the George Schlatter masterpiece Laugh In. Because of shooting conflicts, Feldon was forced to decide between the two shows. In her own words she, "was unwilling to give her number (99) to anyone else" and so she stayed with Get Smart.

Her three biggest challenges on the show included:

1. an unwieldy compact/lipstick phone which left her with a case of gadget-envy
2. an uncooperative, unprofessional co-star in Agent K-14 (a dog)
3. her height. Feldon, is several inches taller than co-star Don Adams and spent a lot of time turning her ankles down and leaning to hid that fact from the cameras. She claims to be the only actress in television with calluses on her ankles.

Feldon continues to view Get Smart fondly. Admittedly, the show has opened many doors for her including one very unusual invitation from the CIA. She was asked to attend an exhibit of memorabilia from spy shows which was not open to the public (2000). While there she met actual CIA agents. Some of these men and women told her that they watched Get Smart and were influenced to become agents because of it.

Since Get Smart Feldon has concentrated primarily on voice-over work like her narration of the PBS series Dinosaurs (something she says she loves to do). But she has also recreated Agent 99 twice; once for the Get Smart TV-movie reunion, and then again for the sequel series on the Fox Network. All of this is in addition to appearances on such television shows as Cheers and Mad About You as well as several movies, including Smile of which she is very proud.

The civic-minded Feldon is involved with Girls Incorporated, a national organization designed to give inner city girls a hand up. Their motto is "Strong Smart and Bold', all qualities which Ms. Feldon exemplifies.

Edward Platt

Staten Island native Edward Platt began his career with the goal of singing opera. For a time he made his living by performing in various Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. This lead to several appearances in a number of Broadway shows ranging from Rogers and Hammerstein's Allegro to playing Jose Ferrer's brother in The Shrike.

For a time, Platt moved to Texas where he hosted a children's birthday party show and did local news reports. He married and soon accepted a role in the film verison of The Shrike. This one film role launched a solid film career which included , The Loves of Omar Khayyam, North By Northwest, and Rebel Without a Cause.

But it was his work as The Chief in Get Smart which garnered Platt the most attention. The story is told that at a running of The Kentucky Derby, spectators learned of Ed Platt's presence and an entire section of the grandstand stood and yelled, "Sorry about that, Chief."

Sadly, Platt passed away in March of 1974.

Robert Karvelas

Robert Karvelas truly benefited from the oldest of Hollywood traditions; nepotism. He was Don Adams's cousin. Karvelas was a Golden Gloves boxing champion in the Marines and a stockbroker after. He and his wife had decided they didn't like Los Angeles and were going to move. But at his cousin's urging he remained in L.A. to work on a new show, Get Smart.

Karvelas played several uncredited bit parts on Get Smart including a KAOS agent. His best known character, Larrabee, grew with time from a walk-on part to assistant to the Chief in short order.

Later appearances included The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Partner, and How To Break Up A Happy Divorce. He reprised the role of Larrabee in The Nude Bomb(1980) and Get Smart Again(1989).
Robert Karvelas passed away in 1992.

Bernie Kopell

Bernie Kopell is a Brooklyn native and a graduate of New York University. After a stint in the United States Navy (his first taste of life on shipboard.) he returned home to New York to pursue acting.

While driving a taxi in 1958, Bernie got an unexpected "break." He picked up Dick Einfeld who was producing The Oregon Trail starring Fred MacMurray at 20th Century Fox. Bernie convinced the skeptical Einfeld that he was not a cab driver but a misplaced actor. Einfeld cast Bernie in the film as Polk's secretary. With this role Kopell joined the actor's union (SAG) and spoke two lines - "Yes, sir." and "No Sir."

From this inauspicious beginning, Bernie began an unlikely four-year stint playing Latin characters on television. He played a Cuban heavy on A Brighter Day, numerous Mexicans on The Danny Kaye Show, The Jack Benny Show, My Favorite Martian, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Steve Allen Show and a Puerto Rican dentist on The Flying Nun.

He landed a role playing the Russian peddler in a stage production ofThe 49th Cousin where he caught the eye of producer Leonard Stern. Stern cast Bernie as Seigfried in Get Smart and as Howard Wagner in the CBS Special Death of a Salesman starring Lee J. Cobb.

Throughout the 60's Bernie appeared simultaneously in Get Smart, That Girl, The Doris Day Show and Bewitched. He became known as an actor with an enormous facility with accents and was known as Bill Asher's (producer of Bewitched) number one boy. Need an ancient Apothecary? Call Bernie. Need a Viennese psychiatrist? Call Bernie. Need a German submarine captain? Call Bernie.

Of course Kopell is known the world over as Dr. Adam Bricker, the ship's medic from The Love Boat. Interestingly, he was not the first choice for the role. His good friend Dick Van Patten had been slated to play the ship's doctor (originally named Adam O'Neil), but ABC (who held Van Patten's contract) wanted him on Eight is Enough. After screen testing him, Aaron Spelling gave Kopell the nod and a television icon was created. While working on the first episode, it was decided that Kopell didn't look like an "O'Neil" and the doctor's name was changed to Adam Bricker.

Since The Love Boat Bernie has been seen in many projects including Diagnosis Murder, Bug Buster, Follow Your Heart, Beverly Hills 90210, Charmed, and numerous specials and commercials.

Bernie is a health and fitness devotee. He is the California Chairman of the American Heart Association's "Jump Rope for Heart" program and participates in many celebrity tennis tournaments for various charities around the world.

Despite his fame and accolades, Bernie's favorite production to discuss is his first child Adam Alexander who was born October 31, 1997. Kopell describes his son as "big blue eyed and brilliant funny." Clearly Adam takes after his dad.

Dick Gautier

Dick Gautier, a Los Angeles native is a prolific actor, writer, artist and comedian. He began his career as a comic in a San Diego nightclub while still a teenager. By age 19 he was a comedy writer for Buster Keaton. In the early 60's, he found himself guest-starring in the classic Bewitched. Soon after, he moved to New York where he made appearances at all of the top comedy venues. His chiseled good looks and natural talents opened many doors for him and soon he was starring opposite Classic TV alumnus Dick Van Dyke in the smash hit musical Bye Bye Birdie (a role which earned Gautier a Tony nomination.)

An open casting call led to Get Smart and the role of Hymie, the literal minded/programmed machine with a heart. Since Get Smart, Gautier has guest starred in a host of roles both on and off screen. He starred in both Mr. Terrific and the critically acclaimed Mel Brooks series When Things Were Rotten.

His vocal talents can be heard voicing characters for Batman: The Animated Series (Teddy Lupus), and Duck Tales.

King Moody

King Moody and Get Smart have an interesting history. King was a close friend of Bernie Kopell (Conrad Siegfried on the show). He had auditioned for and lost out on the role of the Hymie before he was approached to read for Shtarker. In all, Moody appeared as three different characters (Markovitch, Kirsch and Shtarker) in the series.

Before, during and after Get Smart, Moody made dozens of guest appearances in show such as Man From U.N.C.LE., Dragnet, High Chaparral, The Bob Newhart Show, Mission: Impossible, Chico and the Man, Starsky and Hutch, Little House on the Praire, ChiPs, Quantum Leap and Night Court. But more than any of his television or film roles, throughout the 70's, King Moody was famous as the spokesman/clown we all came to know as Ronald McDonald.

Dave Ketchum

Dave Ketchum, an Illinois native, has had a long and busy career as a character man. He can be seen in reruns of nearly every classic TV show made between 1960 and today. His credits include Hey Landlord, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith, Petticoat Junction, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Odd Couple, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, The Partridge Family, Alice, Mork and Mindy, and Happy Days.

Beyond acting, Ketchum, is also a television writer of some note. His writing credits include MacGyver, Scooby-Doo, M*A*S*H, and, of course, Get Smart.

Al Molinaro

Al Molinaro, from Kenosha, Wisconsin, is truly a big cheese. After a single appearance on Bewitched and playing 3 different characters on Green Acres in just one year, Al replaced Dave Ketchum as Agent 44 on Get Smart. Though rarely seen, his sad-sack, comic dead-pan takes quickly made him a stand out on the show.

While appearing in Get Smart, Al studied acting alongside classmate Penny Marshall. Marshall's brother Garry soon cast Molinaro as Murray "the Cop" Greschler in The Odd Couple. That role was followed with Happy Days as Al Delvecchio, Joanie Loves Chachi and a host of guest appearances including The Family Man and Ally McBeal.

Victor French

Victor French was born in Santa Barbara, California on December 4, 1934. His father was a Hollywood stuntman. He, like most of the Get Smart alumni, can be found in nearly every classic show of the 60's through the 90's. But the genre he was most familiar in was Westerns. He made numerous appearances on shows like The Virginian, The Wild, Wild West, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Little House on the Prarie.

French also worked as a director, winning a Critics Circle Award in Los Angeles in 1982.

His best known role was that of Mark on Highway to Heaven. He died of cancer in 1989.