Robert Conrad Dares You

We're used to thinking of Robert Conrad as a two-fisted action hero, but he originally wanted to be a singer.  During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the former professional boxer released a number of teen idol-style crooner records, but the market was overcrowded with Paul Anka, Fabian, Elvis, Frankie Avalon, Pat Boone, and nearly everyone else who could hold a tune.

Bob's records didn't sell, not even with the color shots of his impressive physique.

In 1959, Bob landed a role as Tom Lopaka, the half-Hawaiian partner of detective Tracey Steele (Anthony Eisley) on Hawaiian Eye.  Many of the cases took place on the beach, allowing Bob to strip down to a swimsuit or short-cut jeans.  The buddy-bonding was intense, and there weren't a huge number of episodes in which Tom meets a girl.


When Hawaiian Eye ended in 1963, Bob's singing career was forgotten; after starring against type in the beach movie Palm Springs Weekend (1963), he moved almost into the program that Boomers remember fondly: Wild Wild West (1965-69), a combination of the classic Western with the 1960s spy craze (other examples include Get Smart, The Secret of Boyne Castle, I Spy, and Mission: Impossible.

In the 1870s, special agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) travel through the Old West on the orders of President Grant. They use disguises and weird science fiction gadgets to foil spies, mad scentists, enemy agents, rebels, and miscellaneous high-tech scalawags.

West is tied up shirtless in nearly every episode.  He usually frees himself, but sometimes Gordeon storms to the rescue.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much buddy-bonding. West and Gordon were coworkers, not buddies, and they both leered at women nearly as often as they fell in love.









Bob had found his niche: tongue-in-cheek adventure.  During the next two decades, he was never very far from a tv series: The D.A. (1971-72), Assignment Vienna (1972-73), Black Sheep Squadron (1976-78), A Man Called Sloane (1979).  Although he had time for two buddy-bonding movies with Don Stroud.

When tongue-in-cheek adventure went out of style during the early 1980s, Bob switched to comedy (Wrong is Right, Moving Violations) or drama (Assassin, Charley Hannah).  But he rarely forgot to include a shirtless scene or two.

He parodied himself in a series of commercials for Ever-Ready Batteries in the 1980s, daring the viewer to knock a battery off his shoulder (traditionally one starts fights by daring someone to knock a chip off one's shoulder).

The rumor mill suggested that he was bisexual, and during the 1950s had liaisons with some of the great closeted actors in Hollywood, such as Tab Hunter, Wally Cox, and Rock Hudson.  Bob denied the rumors, stating to the press "I'm not gay" several times.

Don Stroud: Robert Conrad's Buddy

My church taught that going to a movie was the worst sin imaginable -- God would strike you dead if you even set foot in a theater.  So my brother and I saw almost none during our childhood, only when an oblivious babysitting uncle took us or when a sleepover involved a movie as entertainment.  In high school, my friend Darry and I occasionally took the bus downtown to "study at the library," and went to a matinee at the Fort Armstrong Theater.

We always looked for "good" movies.  We couldn't exactly articulate what "good" meant, but posters with two guys together always caught our eye.  Especially if the two guys were muscular and shirtless.  A surprising number starred Don Stroud:

1975: Murf the Surf.  A surfer (Don) and his buddy Allan (real life buddy Robert Conrad) plot a jewel heist. They like girls, but they also like each other.  A lot

1977: Sudden Death, with Robert Conrad.  Buddies who like girls go to the Philippines to investigate a series of murders by an evil sugar company, and end up rescuing each other with their shirts off.  This is the first R-rated movie I ever saw.

1978: The Buddy Holly Story.  The rock and roll legend (Gary Busey) and his gay-vague best buddy, drummer Jesse (Don).

1979: Search and Destroy, with Perry King (then known for playing gay and gay-vague characters).  Buddies investigate a murder.

Don Stroud got his start as a world-class surfer hired as Troy Donahue's stunt double on Hawaiian Eye; he would return to surfing later as the Big Kahuna in the recasts of the Gidget series (1985, 1988).

During the 1980s and 1990s he moved into television, appearing in over 175 episodes of a huge number of tv series, including Chips, Knight Rider, The Powers of Matthew Star, and The A-Team.  Most recently he played the evil sheriff  most recently in Django Unchained (2012).

Always a beefcake star, Don took off his shirt in most performances, and appeared nude in Playgirl in 1973.

He had many gay friends and moved in the same circles as Robert Conrad, Robert Wagner, and Nick Adams, yet oddly he was never the subject of any gay rumors.

Married three times, he has retired to his native Hawaii.