Frank DeKova(1910-1981)
- Actor
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 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.
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 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.