31 Facts About Claude Akins

Claude Aubrey Akins was an American character actor.

Claude Akins served in the Pacific with the US Army Signal Corps during World War II.

Claude Akins began his theatrical career at the Barter Theater in Abington, Virginia.

Claude Akins became an actor on Broadway in the late 1940s, and had a role in the play The Rose Tattoo.

Claude Akins was signed up by talent agent Meyer Mishkin and became one of "Meyer Mishkin's Band of Uglies," a group of character actors represented by Mishkin that included Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jeff Chandler, James Coburn, Michael Ansara and Chuck Connors.

Claude Akins later recounted that early in his career demands were made on actors in low-budget movies that included doing their own stunts to save money.

Claude Akins appeared as a seaman in The Caine Mutiny, in which he appeared as one of a pair of incorrigible seamen, Horrible and Meatball, the other played by Lee Marvin.

Claude Akins portrayed prisoner Joe Burdette in Rio Bravo.

Claude Akins was featured in Sam Fuller's 1962 film Merrill's Marauders, receiving critical acclaim for his performance as a hard-bitten, weary soldier, especially for a scene in which his unit rests for a short while in a Burmese village.

Claude Akins played Seely Jones in A Distant Trumpet, and the guerrilla leader Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the last original Apes movie.

Claude Akins had a small part in The Sea Chase with John Wayne.

Claude Akins appeared with Yul Brynner and Robert Fuller in the film Return of the Seven, and appeared in the movie Seasons of the Heart.

Claude Akins was cast in myriad television series, including The Adventures of Superman, in which he plays a villainous conspirator, Crusader, and I Love Lucy in which he portrays himself.

Claude Akins appeared once on Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Empire, Laredo, the syndicated series, Pony Express, and The Oregon Trail, with Rod Taylor.

Claude Akins was cast as Jarret Sutton in "Escape to Memphis" and as Beaudry Rawlins in Duel on the River on Darren McGavin's NBC series, Riverboat.

Claude Akins played a rodeo clown convicted of armed robbery in "Killer on Horseback", an episode of the NBC anthology series Star Stage, which became the pilot episode for the syndicated police drama State Trooper, starring Rod Cameron.

Claude Akins was featured in two episodes of the original CBS series The Twilight Zone.

Claude Akins made a comedic turn on Hazel, as a frustrated painter.

Claude Akins played another television cop, good-natured Sheriff's Detective Phillip Dix, in the first season of the Perry Mason in "The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife" that aired March 15,1958.

Claude Akins was in a first-season episode of Maverick titled "Burial Ground of the Gods" that starred Jack Kelly.

Claude Akins portrayed prosecuting attorney Calvin Wolf opposite Carl Betz in an episode of Judd, for the Defense.

Claude Akins played a kidnapper in a 1964 episode of The Fugitive.

Also that year, Claude Akins portrayed the head of an Irish immigrant family in The Big Valley.

Claude Akins had an earlier role in the first season of Barnaby Jones; episode titled "Murder Go-Round".

Claude Akins starred in over 40 episodes of Movin' On, plus a made-for-TV movie "In Tandem".

Claude Akins starred as a Nashville police detective, Stoney Huff, in the crime drama Nashville 99.

Claude Akins made a golfing video with Ron Masak, entitled Tom Kite and Friends.

Claude Akins made a latter-day appearance on In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor.

Claude Akins died of stomach cancer in Altadena, California, on January 27,1994, at the age of 67.

Claude Akins was cremated, and his ashes were returned to Altadena.

In 1986, Claude Akins attended the 55th annual American Indian Exposition in Anadarko, Oklahoma.