los angeles (ap) | Don Adams, the wry-voiced comedian who starred as the fumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the 1960s TV spoof of James Bond movies, “Get Smart,” has died. He was 82.
Adams died of a lung infection late Sunday, Sept. 25, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his friend and former agent Bruce Tufeld said, adding that the actor broke his hip a year ago and had been in ill health since.
He was born Donald James Yarmy in New York City on April 13, 1923, Tufeld said, although some sources say 1926 or ’27. The actor’s father was a Hungarian Jew who ran a few small restaurants in the Bronx.
In a 1959 interview Adams said he never cared about being funny as a child: “Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all. I did movie star impressions as a kid in high school. Somehow they just got out of hand.”
As the inept Agent 86 of the super-secret federal agency CONTROL, Adams captured TV viewers with his antics in combating the evil agents of KAOS. When his explanations failed to convince the villains or his boss, he tried another tack:
“Would you believe … “
It became a national catchphrase.
Smart was also prone to spilling things on the desk or person of his boss — the chief (actor Edward Platt). Smart’s apologetic “Sorry about that, chief” also entered the American lexicon.
The spy gadgets, which aped those of the Bond movies, were a popular feature, especially the telephone in his shoe.
Adams, who married and divorced three times and had seven children, served as the voice for the popular cartoon series “Inspector Gadget” as well as the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo. In 1980, he appeared as Maxwell Smart in a feature film, “The Nude Bomb,” about a madman whose bomb destroyed people’s clothing.