Plus: At the Movies also cancelled, Buck Rogers is Hollywood's latest remake, and Chuck might be a goner.
Robert Culp, the actor who teamed with Bill Cosby in the racially groundbreaking TV series I Spy, has died after collapsing outside his Hollywood home, his manager said.
Yes, Robert Culp can act, and has done so. He tends a little... let's say AWAY from subtlety, but with the right director (and material) he truly shines. That's not, however, the concern of this review, which does not purport to be complete, nor to do Culp's acting ability (which is really quite nice, despite the above) justice. No, I mean, here, only to point out one feature, and yes it has to do with his acting, that may either have been overlooked or gone unmentioned out of some sense of delicacy. (No, I am not going to be all that indelicate. Relax.)
Back when I was young and watching I Spy not in its original run but in syndication a half a decade later, I began to find my attention being drawn to the fact that Robert Culp was, apart from his general thespian skills, quite good at walking away from the camera.
It only later became apparent to me that the directors of the episodes had also discovered this. Later episodes definitely show more departures, so to speak, than earlier ones.
Now, I said this was going to have to do with his acting. It does. The portion of Robert Culp that attracts an astute viewer's interest when he turns his back upon same isn't all that unusually, or even finely, constructed. It's what he DOES with it. It has attitude. The attitude belongs to... no, not Robert Culp. It belongs, in this case, to Kelly Robinson. (Admittedly he seems to have thrown a lot of himself into that particulare role.) If and when he portrayed a person of more staid character, I believe his body would reflect/has reflected that.
Acting is not all cerebral. If you have a grasp of your character, your sense-memory is working right, and you are in the time and place into which the script has put you, it follows that... well, it all follows. ALL of it. Thus it was not the prurience of my youth (well okay, maybe a little) that most greatly contributed to my appreciation of the side of Culp they don't put in his composites.
Oh, and apart from that, he's a pretty good actor. No, NOT apart from that! It's part and parcel. And a very nice parcel, too.
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