Frank De Kova

Frank DeKova parlayed a sinister scowl, piercing eyes and an all-around menacing attitude into a long career of playing cold-blooded trigger-men, rampaging Indian chiefs, brutal Mexican army officers and the like. So it would probably come as a shock to those who know his work to discover that, before he became an actor, he was--of all things--a schoolteacher. Born in New York in 1910, DeKova gave up teaching for the stage, and played in many Shakespearean productions before getting work on Broadway. One of his first starring roles was in the classic detective play "Detective Story", which got him noticed and brought to Hollywood. He debuted in Viva Zapata! (1952) as the devious Mexican colonel who sets up Zapata's assassination. For the next several years he played an assortment of gangsters, killers, gunfighters and Indians--with time out to play a prehistoric patriarch in Roger Corman's campy Teenage Cave Man (1958)--and did much television work, including a standout job as a Mafia hit-man assigned to kill Elliot Ness in Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse: The Untouchables: Part 1 (1959). The role for which he will be most remembered, however, is probably the one that was his most atypical: the scheming, somewhat untrustworthy but very funny Hekawi Chief Wild Eagle, the partner to Forrest Tucker's Sgt. O'Rourke in O'Rourke's various schemes to make money, in the western comedy series F Troop (1965). He showed a previously unknown talent for comedy and managed to steal most of the scenes he was in from such veterans as Tucker and Larry Storch. He died in his sleep in 1981.

Known For	Acting
Most Rating	10.932
Birthday	1910-03-17
Place of Birth	New York City, New York, USA
Also Known As	Frank DeKova,

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Heavy Traffic

The Jayhawkers!

The Ten Commandments

Hey Good Lookin'

Split Second

Atlantis: The Lost Continent

American Pop

The Slams

Those Calloways

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond

Machine-Gun Kelly

The Brothers Karamazov

Shack Out on 101

Arrowhead

Day of the Outlaw

Appointment with a Shadow

King of the Khyber Rifles

The Man from Laramie

Jive Turkey

Johnny Firecloud

The Don Is Dead

Teenage Cave Man

Drum Beat

Ride Out for Revenge

The White Squaw

Reprisal!

Santiago

Fighter Attack

The Desert Song

Cowboy

Cat in the Cage

Strange Lady in Town

The Lone Ranger

Follow That Dream

They Rode West

Passion

Run of the Arrow

Apache Territory

The Wild Country

Mafia on the Bounty

The Mechanic

The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle

Coonskin

Not One Shall Die

Holiday for Sinners

Pillars of the Sky

Hold Back Tomorrow

Kiss of Death

Crossfire

The Sword of Ali Baba

Raiders of the Seven Seas

Johnny Moccasin

The Big Sky

All the Brothers Were Valiant