Frank De Kova
Acting
115 titles
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.
Filmography
Hey Good Lookin'
1982
American Pop
1981
Mafia on the Bounty
1980
Cat in the Cage
1978
The Incredible Hulk
1977
The Swiss Family Robinson
1975
Coonskin
1975
Johnny Firecloud
1975
Crossfire
1975
Baretta
1975
Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
1974
Police Woman
1974
The Rockford Files
1974
Little House on the Prairie
1974
Run, Joe, Run
1974
The Don Is Dead
1973
Toma
1973
The Slams
1973
Heavy Traffic
1973
Frasier, the Sensuous Lion
1973
Police Story
1973
The Mechanic
1972
Cannon
1971
The Wild Country
1970
Love, American Style
1969
Hawaii Five-O
1968
It Takes a Thief
1968
The High Chaparral
1967
The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle
1967
The F.B.I.
1965
F Troop
1965
The Greatest Story Ever Told
1965
The Sword of Ali Baba
1965
Those Calloways
1964
Daniel Boone
1964
Kraft Suspense Theatre
1963
The Greatest Show on Earth
1963
The Dakotas
1963
The Gallant Men
1962
Follow That Dream
1962
Ben Casey
1961
Atlantis: The Lost Continent
1961
Gunslinger
1961
The Roaring 20's
1960
Route 66
1960
Surfside 6
1960
The Islanders
1960
Outlaws
1960
Thriller
1960
The Tall Man
1960
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
1960
The Detectives
1959
The Jayhawkers!
1959
The Untouchables
1959
Hawaiian Eye
1959
The Alaskans
1959
The Rebel
1959
The Third Man
1959
Laramie
1959
The Deputy
1959
The Troubleshooters
1959
Johnny Staccato
1959
Day of the Outlaw
1959
The Lawless Years
1959
Black Saddle
1959
Rawhide
1959
77 Sunset Strip
1958
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse
1958
Lawman
1958
The Rifleman
1958
Peter Gunn
1958
Apache Territory
1958
Teenage Cave Man
1958
Machine-Gun Kelly
1958
The Brothers Karamazov
1958
Cowboy
1958
Ride Out for Revenge
1957
The Walter Winchell File
1957
Maverick
1957
Wagon Train
1957
Run of the Arrow
1957
Appointment with a Shadow
1957
Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans
1957
Not One Shall Die
1957
Reprisal!
1956
The White Squaw
1956
Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers
1956
The Ten Commandments
1956
Pillars of the Sky
1956
Santiago
1956
Johnny Moccasin
1956
The Lone Ranger
1956
Shack Out on 101
1955
Hold Back Tomorrow
1955
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1955
Cheyenne
1955
Gunsmoke
1955
The Man from Laramie
1955
Strange Lady in Town
1955
They Rode West
1954
Drum Beat
1954
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin
1954
Passion
1954
Valley of the Kings
1954
King of the Khyber Rifles
1953
Fighter Attack
1953
All the Brothers Were Valiant
1953
Arrowhead
1953
The Desert Song
1953
Raiders of the Seven Seas
1953
Split Second
1953
The Big Sky
1952
Holiday for Sinners
1952
Martin Kane, Private Eye
1949
Kiss of Death
1947