Robert Stack was an American actor and television host. Known for his deep voice and commanding presence, he appeared in over forty feature films. He starred in the ABC television series The Untouchables (1959–1963), for which he won the 1960 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Series, and later hosted/narrated the true-crime series Unsolved Mysteries (1987–2002). He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Written on the Wind (1956). Later in his career, Stack was known for his deadpan comedy roles that lampooned his dramatic on-screen persona, most notably as Captain Rex Kramer in Airplane! (1980).
Stack in the 1950s
Stack, c. 1940
Stack in Written on the Wind (1956)
Stack portraying prohibition agent, Eliot Ness, in the series The Untouchables (1959)
The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
The Untouchables is an American crime drama produced by Desilu Productions that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC television network. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalizes the experiences of Ness as a Prohibition agent fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their courage, moral character and incorruptibility, nicknamed the Untouchables. The book was later made into a celebrated film in 1987 and a second, less-successful TV series in 1993.
The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
Photo of the cast for The Untouchables as seen on Desilu Playhouse: Only Robert Stack (third from left) and Abel Fernandez (second from right) were used in the actual television series. Keenan Wynn is seen here at the right of Robert Stack, Peter Leeds (who played LaMarr Kane, replaced in the series by Chuck Hicks) is to the right of Wynn, and TV's Kit Carson, Bill Williams as Marty Flaherty (replaced by Jerry Paris in the series), is on the far right. Actor
Stack as Eliot Ness with Gloria Talbott, 1962
The cast from left: Abel Fernandez, Nicholas Georgiade, Paul Picerni, (seated) Robert Stack (not shown: Steve London)