From my slightly worn (got it second hand) copy of "Hawaiian Eye," below is Robert Conrad (born Conrad Falk, March 1, 1935 – February 8, 2020) singing "You're Getting to be a Habit With Me."
He got to be a habit with TV fans for decades, basically playing himself in different names or costumes. He was on series after series, the most popular including "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Wild Wild West." The vague Chicago accent was always there, as was his particular brand of TV cool, which involved a pugnacious indifference to most everyone. No wonder he once starred in a much-parodied commercial: "Go on, a dare ya to knock this battery off my shoulder."
He was just what you thought he was. A cocky guy who seemed to enjoy taking down guys taller than he was (he was 5'8"), he was always up for a challenge on the set, including doing his own stunts whenever possible. His brand of self-confidence meant that he didn't throw himself at the ladies; he expected them to either make the first move, or reach for his cock as soon as he cocked his eye. In real life, he was quite a family man, married to his first wife for 25 years (and five children) and then adding three more kids via his second marriage.
It was an odd trait of most TV heroes of his generation; show a certain "take it or leave it" disdain. Robert Vaughn and Gene Barry almost seemed nauseated by all the fawning and flirting they had to endure. Steve McQueen was more stoic, while Robert Stack and Craig Stevens figured they were the best studs available. It was somewhat rare for a TV cowboy or detective to need to be a "charmer," and rely on wit, personality or the bribe of a classy dinner and champagne on ice. Singing was also not required. Very few of the era's stars bothered to make even one record (Hugh O'Brian, Edd Byrnes, Gene Barry, etc.) and rarely were invited to do another (Vincent Edwards, Richard Chamberlain, Pernell Roberts...)
Robert Conrad only had one song on the "Hawaiian Eye" soundtrack. By the time of "Wild Wild West," the guy who sang most often on the show was guest-star Michael Dunn. The theme songs on so many of these shows were pretty terrible, weren't they? Over at Warner Bros., there was almost a formula to them: say the name of the show OVER and OVER, and do it as obnoxiously as possible: "77 Sunset Strip," "Bourbon Street Beat," "Surfside Six," "Hawaiian Eye...." all lousy.
One of his last series attempts was "A Man Called Sloane" in 1979, and his last major film was "Jingle All the Way" in 1996. Fans still loved him, and the old re-runs, and he turned up with his own talk radio show in 2008, which continued for ten years. For one reason or another — probably "Wild Wild West" for most people, Bob Conrad remains a "habit," even if the song below is just one of those, "say, he sings ok" items.
You're Getting to be a Habit With Me - instant download, listen on line, NO dodgy-creepy websites run by foreign thugs, NO Paypal donation request, NO dopey password
2 comments:
He was among the great American tradition of not-actors. You were looking at him. He dropped out at 15 and scrambled in the beginning. He was, however, singing from the start, unlike most. He was not brilliant and full of blatant neuroses. That battery bit was also him, along with the Conrad-Kaplan melt-down at the "Battle...Stars" (with network conspiracy theories supplied by Savalas).
He was among a group of new people at the turn of the sixties that the studios thought/hoped would be the next real biggies - Conrad, Troy Donahue, George Peppard, and so forth. For various reasons, many self-inflicted, it didn't happen.
To his credit, later in life he regretted mot working on his chops, instead spending all the down time on the set playing flag football with the stuntmen. He said he was a "cartoon character", but always seemed to mention how he and the boys won all the
games.
And if he's 5'8", I'll eat his elevator cowboy boots - [Beverly Garland:] "Thank goodness we didn't have any love scenes together. I am taller than Robert Conrad, but then, who isn't? He's a tiny man."
Cool stuff. The link goes to Orson Bean though.
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