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Robert Langford Modini Stack (13 January 1919 – 14 May 2003) was an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award nominated American stage and movie actor. He was perhaps best known for his film acting as well as his role in the television series The Untouchables and as host of Unsolved Mysteries. He starred in more than 40 films. Stack was born in Los Angeles, California but spent his early childhood growing up in Europe. He became fluent in French and Italian at an early age, but he did not learn English until returning to Los Angeles. Raised by his mother, Mary Elizabeth (née Wood), Stack`s parents divorced when Stack was a year old, and his father, James Langford Stack, a wealthy advertising agency owner, died when Stack was nine. Stack always spoke of his mother with the greatest respect and love. When he wrote his autobiography, Straight Shooting, he included a picture of him and his mother. He captioned it, "Me and my best girl." Stack`s grandfather was an opera singer from Illinois named Charles Wood, who went by the name, "Modini."
By the time he reached 20-years-old, Stack achieved minor fame as a sportsman. He was an avid polo player. He and his brother won the International Outboard Motor Championships, in Venice, Italy; and, at age 16, he became a member of the All-American Skeet Team. He set two world records in skeet shooting and became National Champion. In 1971, he was inducted into the National Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame.
Stack also starred in three other drama series, rotating the lead with Tony Franciosa and Gene Barry in the lavish The Name of the Game (1968-1971), Most Wanted, (1976) and Strike Force (1981). Interestingly, in The Name of the Game, he played a former federal agent turned true-crime journalist, evoking memories of his role as Ness. In both Most Wanted and Strike Force he played a tough, incorruptible police captain commanding an elite squad of special investigators, also evoking the Ness role. Eventually, he would reprise the role in a 1992 TV movie, The Return of Eliot Ness.
Known for his steadfast, humorless demeanor, he made fun of his own persona in comedies such as 1941 (1979), Airplane! (1980), Caddyshack II (1988), and BASEketball (1998). He also provided the voice for the character Ultra Magnus in Transformers: The Movie (1986). Stack as host of Unsolved MysteriesHe began hosting Unsolved Mysteries in 1987, where his serious, ominous voice and stoic facial expressions lent an authentic gravitas to the program`s dark subject matter. He thought very highly of the interactive nature of the show, saying that it created a "symbiotic" relationship between viewer and program, and that the hotline was a great crime-solving tool. Unsolved Mysteries aired from 1987 to 2002, first as specials in 1987 (Stack did not host all the specials), then as a regular series on NBC (1988-1997), then on CBS (1997-1999) and finally on Lifetime (2001-2002). Stack served as the show`s host during its entire original series run. Unsolved Mysteries is now hosted by Dennis Farina.
Stack was married to actress Rosemarie Bowe from 1956 until his death. Stack underwent radiation therapy for prostate cancer in October 2002. He died of heart failure at his home in Los Angeles on May 14, 2003. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.
Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stack
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