Actor Peter Graves, whose career spanned a star-making role in the 1960s TV series “Mission Impossible” to a late career reboot in the 1980s as Captain Clarence Oveur in the two slapstick “Airplane!” movies, died at age 83 on Sunday.
According to CNN, Graves collapsed in the driveway of his Los Angeles home on Sunday and was found by his daughter, who attempted to perform CPR unsuccessfully. A spokesperson for the actor said he was in good health and died of natural causes.
Born Peter Aurness on March 26, 1925, Graves had a long and storied career in Hollywood that spanned more than 70 movies and a number of TV series, beginning in 1942 with an uncredited debut in the war film “Winning Your Wings.” He moved out to Hollywood to join his older brother, actor James Arness, best known as the star of the long-running TV Western “Gunsmoke.” Peter changed his last name his name to avoid confusion with his sibling.
His early career was distinguished by a number of roles in schlocky horror and space movies (which would later become a running joke on “Mystery Science Theater 3000”) such as “Red Planet Mars,” Roger Corman’s “It Conquered the World” and “Killers From Space.” He had his first breakout role in the 1953 World War II classic “Stalag 17,” where he played an undercover Nazi spy hiding among American POWs in a German camp.
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