Known For
Acting
Born
Mar 17, 1910
Died
Oct 15, 1981
Place of Birth
New York City, New York, USA
Credits
116 titles
Frank De Kova
Biography
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.
Known For
Filmography
Hey Good Lookin'
Old Vinnie (voice)
American Pop
Crisco (voice)
Mafia on the Bounty
Rupolo
Cat in the Cage
Rachid Khan
The Incredible Hulk
The Swiss Family Robinson
Coonskin
Managan (voice) / Ruby (voice) (uncredited)
Johnny Firecloud
White Eagle
Crossfire
Albert Ambrose
Baretta
Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
Big Tony (as Frank deKova)
The Rockford Files
Nova
Police Woman
Little House on the Prairie
Chief Kilowatt
Run, Joe, Run
The Don Is Dead
Giunta
Toma
The Slams
Capiello
Heavy Traffic
Angelo "Angie" Corleone (voice)
Frasier, the Sensuous Lion
The Man
Police Story
The Mechanic
The Man
Cannon
The Wild Country
Two Dog
Love, American Style
Hawaii Five-O
Phil Kalama
It Takes a Thief
Gen. Tashkov
The High Chaparral
Aguirre
The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle
Narrator (voice)
The F.B.I.
Faber
F Troop
Chief Wild Eagle
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The tormentor
The Sword of Ali Baba
Old Baba
Those Calloways
Nigosh
Daniel Boone
Talakum
Kraft Suspense Theatre
Edward
The Greatest Show on Earth
Joseph
The Dakotas
The Gallant Men
Follow That Dream
Jack (as Frank de Kova)
Ben Casey
Atlantis: The Lost Continent
Sonoy the Astrologer
Gunslinger
Don Ignacio Alesandro
The Roaring 20's
Route 66
Surfside 6
Stinger
The Islanders
Carlos Roca
Outlaws
Thriller
Lieutenant Vincoli
The Tall Man