Peter Graves 1926 - 2010

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Actor Peter Graves died over the weekend at age 83. Graves' career spanned seven decades; he made his first movie in 1942 and last acted in front of the camera in 2007. Now that's a long career, especially for an actor!

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Graves did a lot of voice-over work over the years, most notably as the narrator of the "Biography" series, but his biggest claim to fame was as Jim Phelps, the leader of the spy fix-it squad on the very popular t.v. series,

"Mission: Impossible" which ran from 1966-1973. We recently watched some old reruns of the "Mission: Impossible" show, and it's funny how slow it seems to move. The pace of shows, now, is so much faster. But if you can get through the long, slow, methodically paced scenes, the old M.I. still holds up. It's a lot of fun, in fact, to see what the newest spy gadgetry was back then, and how it was used to foil the evil Eastern European villains.

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Physically, Graves was one of those rare human beings who only got better looking with age. And short of Anderson Cooper, no one was sexier while rocking the silver mane.

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(peter graves in the 1980 comedy "airplane")

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But despite everything else that Peter Graves did, he might be remembered by most for his scenes in the classic comedic film, 1980's "Airplane". After 100 years of Hollywood movies, "Airplane" still makes most lists of the best comedies of all time, and Peter Graves' scenes in "Airplane" were some of the funniest ever committed to the silver screen.