Monday, March 15, 2010

RIP Peter Graves


From "Should you choose to accept this mission...this tape will self-destruct in five seconds" to "Roger, Roger...What's our vector, Victor?", Peter Graves was a smooth and debonair actor. He will be remembered most for his role as Jim Phelps in TV series Mission: Impossible and the pilot Clarence Oveur in the movie Airplane. He played the earnest hero quite ably, then proved capable of comedic subtlety by playing both a send-up of his hero persona and his own straight man in the process.

And after that? He became somewhat of an icon, as his voice became the representation of the Biography series. Not at all a bad resume.

Factoid I didn't know before today -- Peter Graves was the younger brother of Marshal Dillon himself, James Arness.