Peter Graves

Peter Graves
Peter Graves as Jim Phelps on Mission: Impossible
Born	Peter Aurness March 18, 1926 (1926-03-18) (age 83) Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Occupation	Film, television actor
Spouse(s)	Joan Endress (1950-present)

Peter Graves (born March 18, 1926)^[1][2] is an American film and television actor. He is known for his starring role in the television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973, and its revival, from 1988 to 1990.

Personal life

Graves was born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Ruth (née Duesler), a journalist, and Rolf Cirkler Aurness, a Norwegian who worked in business. Graves is a descendant of German and Norwegian immigrants. His brother is actor James Arness (Gunsmoke). Graves attended Southwest High School (Class of 1944) and the University of Minnesota, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Graves has been married to Joan Endress since 1950. They have three daughters: Kelly, Claudia and Amanda. They have six grandchildren.

Career

Graves has appeared in more than seventy films, TV series and TV movies. He is especially well known for the following roles:

• The rancher (Broken Wheel Ranch) and adoptive single father to a son played by child actor Bobby Diamond on the 1950s NBC television series Fury. The other costars were William Fawcett, who played the housekeeper and general ranch hand Pete Wilkey, and Roger Mobley, who appeared as Joey's friend Homer "Packy" Lambert.
• Price, a hot-shot German spy placed among allied POWs in Stalag 17
• A father on the run from the law in Night of the Hunter
• James (Jim) Phelps, the leader of the elite Impossible Missions Force in the iconic CBS TV series Mission: Impossible
• Major Noah Cooper, commander of the Fighting 69th squadron in the NBC TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
• Captain Clarence Oveur in the comedies Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel
• Colonel John Camden on the WB Network TV series 7th Heaven

From 1960–1961, Graves started as (lead role) Christopher Cobb in 34 episodes of the TV series Whiplash as an American who arrived in Australia in the 1850s to establish the country's first stagecoach line. Cobb mainly used a bullwhip rather than a gun to fight the crooks he encountered. The series also starred Anthony Wickert as Dan. He had previously starred as Jim Newton in the children's TV series Fury. He also starred in Court Martial five years later as well as TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Route 66.

In 1967, Graves was recruited by Desilu Studios to replace Steven Hill as the lead actor on Mission: Impossible. Graves played Jim Phelps, the sometimes gruff leader of the Impossible Missions Force or IMF, for the remaining six seasons of the series.

After the series ended in 1973, Graves played a cameo-type support role in the feature film Sidecar Racers in Australia which was released in 1975. Graves also made a guest appearance in the teen soap opera Class of '74 in mid-1974, playing himself.

In 1988, a Hollywood writers' strike resulted in a new Mission: Impossible series being commissioned. Graves was the only original cast member to return as a regular (although others made guest appearances). The series was filmed in Australia, and Graves made his third journey there for acting work. The new version of Mission: Impossible lasted for two seasons, ending in 1990.

Bookending his work on Mission: Impossible, Graves starred in two pilot films called Call to Danger, which were an attempt to create a Mission: Impossible-style series in which Graves played a government agent (the Bureau of National Resources) who recruited civilians with special talents for secret missions.^[3] The 1960s version of the pilot, according to Patrick White in The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, is credited with winning Graves the role of Phelps; after Mission: Impossible ended in 1973, Graves filmed a second version of the pilot, but it did not sell as a series. The concept was later used in the 1980s adventure series Masquerade.

Handprints of Peter Graves in front of Hollywood Hills Amphitheater at the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

During the 1990s, he hosted the documentary series Biography on A&E. He also acted in a number of films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which subsequently featured running jokes about Graves' Biography work and presumed sibling rivalry with Arness. The films that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 include SST: Death Flight, It Conquered the World, Beginning of the End, Parts: The Clonus Horror, and Killers from Space. Graves himself parodied his Biography work in the film Men in Black II, hosting an exposé television show.

In the 1996 film update of Mission: Impossible, the character of Phelps was reimagined as a traitor who murdered three fellow IMF agents. Although Graves was reportedly offered the role, the character was played in the movie by Jon Voight. It is claimed that he did not want to appear in a version of Mission: Impossible that involved Phelps in a villainous role, although it has also been said Graves turned down the role after learning his character was to die towards the end of the film.

In 2009, AirTran Airways featured Graves in a series of web-only "Internetiquette" videos in which Graves appears in a pilot's uniform and references classic Airplane! lines. The videos are part of an AirTran Airways campaign to promote their in-flight WI-FI internet access.

Awards

He won a Golden Globe Award in 1971 for his role as Jim Phelps in the series Mission: Impossible. He also received nominations for Emmy Awards and Golden Globe awards in other seasons of that show.

Filmography

References

External links

• Peter Graves at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography and filmography