Claude Akins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Claude Akins

Born	Claude Marion Akins May 25, 1926 Nelson, Georgia, USA
Died	January 27, 1994 (aged 67) Altadena, California USA
Years active	1956-1994

Claude Marion Akins (May 25, 1926 — January 27, 1994) was an American actor. He was born in Nelson, Georgia and grew up in Bedford, Indiana. He was a 1949 graduate of Northwestern University , where he studied theatre.^[1] and became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever (or less than clever) tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series B.J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spinoff series.

In movies, his first appearance was in From Here to Eternity in 1953. Akins portrayed prisoner Joe Berdett in the movie Rio Bravo (which also starred John Wayne and Angie Dickinson), Naval Lt. Commander Farber in Don't Give Up The Ship (starring Jerry Lewis), Sgt Kolowicz in Merrill's Marauders, Rockwell W. "Rocky" Rockman in The Devil's Brigade, the Reverend Jeremiah Brown in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, outlaw Ben Lane in Comanche Station that same year, Seely Jones in A Distant Trumpet (1964), and the gorilla leader Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the last original Apes movie in 1973.

In television, Akins had an early appearance in Adventures of Superman (episode number 69, "Peril by Sea"), playing a villainous co-conspirator. He had numerous roles in Western series, including Wagon Train, The Big Valley, Death Valley Days, Zane Grey Theater, The Rifleman and Bonanza, and featured roles on the original The Twilight Zone ("The Little People", "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street") and The Untouchables. Another early appearance was playing a cop in "Reward to Finder," on Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1957. Akins played another TV cop, good natured Sheriff's Detective Sargent Phillip Dix, in the first season of thePerry Mason TV Series in "The Case of the Half-Wakend Wife" (Episode 1-26) that aired March 15, 1958.

Before his signature character Lobo, he appeared as trucker Sonny Pruett in NBC's Movin' On, from 1974 to 1976. He also appeared in TV commercials for PoliGrip and Aamco. He guest-starred on an episode of CBS's I Love Lucy, playing himself.

Akins found work in the late 1980s lending his inimitable voice talents to the work safety instructional video series Safety Shorts. In these videos Akins was able to expound the virtues of workplace safety to thousands of industrial employees, offering valuable lessons on the importance of Lockout/tagout procedures, personal protective equipment, and the ever popular MSDS documentation process.

Akins died of cancer in 1994.