
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.
115 acting credits
Acting · 115

Love, American Style
1969

Little House on the Prairie
1974

The Rifleman
1958

Hawaii Five-O
1968

Wagon Train
1957

Maverick
1957

The Rockford Files
1974

The F.B.I.
1965

Cheyenne
1955

Ben Casey
1961

The Incredible Hulk
1977

The Untouchables
1959

Daniel Boone
1964

Lawman
1958

Rawhide
1959

Route 66
1960

Police Woman
1974

Cannon
1971

Thriller
1960

Hawaiian Eye
1959

Baretta
1975

77 Sunset Strip
1958

Gunsmoke
1955

The High Chaparral
1967

Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1955

Peter Gunn
1958

Surfside 6
1960

Kraft Suspense Theatre
1963

The Detectives
1959

The Rebel
1959

Laramie
1959

Black Saddle
1959

Police Story
1973

F Troop
1965

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse
1958

The Deputy
1959

The Tall Man
1960

It Takes a Thief
1968

Outlaws
1960

The Third Man
1959

The Islanders
1960

The Ten Commandments
1956

The Roaring 20's
1960

The Gallant Men
1962

The Alaskans
1959

The Lawless Years
1959
The Greatest Show on Earth
1963

The Dakotas
1963

Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans
1957

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin
1954

Johnny Staccato
1959

Run, Joe, Run
1974

Toma
1973

The Walter Winchell File
1957

Gunslinger
1961

The Troubleshooters
1959

The Greatest Story Ever Told
1965

The Swiss Family Robinson
1975

The Mechanic
1972

Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers
1956

The Brothers Karamazov
1958

Cowboy
1958

The Man from Laramie
1955

American Pop
1981

Kiss of Death
1947

Martin Kane, Private Eye
1949

Hey Good Lookin'
1982

Coonskin
1975

Heavy Traffic
1973

Drum Beat
1954

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
1960

Santiago
1956

The Big Sky
1952

Pillars of the Sky
1956

The Jayhawkers!
1959

The Don Is Dead
1973

The Lone Ranger
1956

All the Brothers Were Valiant
1953

Atlantis: The Lost Continent
1961

Arrowhead
1953

Day of the Outlaw
1959

Raiders of the Seven Seas
1953

Run of the Arrow
1957

King of the Khyber Rifles
1953

Follow That Dream
1962

The Desert Song
1953

Strange Lady in Town
1955

Those Calloways
1964

Machine-Gun Kelly
1958

Fighter Attack
1953

Appointment with a Shadow
1957

Ride Out for Revenge
1957

The Wild Country
1970

Teenage Cave Man
1958

The Slams
1973
Johnny Moccasin
1956

Passion
1954

Reprisal!
1956

Valley of the Kings
1954

Split Second
1953

Crossfire
1975

They Rode West
1954

The Sword of Ali Baba
1965

Apache Territory
1958

Shack Out on 101
1955

Johnny Firecloud
1975

The White Squaw
1956

Frasier, the Sensuous Lion
1973

Holiday for Sinners
1952

Not One Shall Die
1957

Hold Back Tomorrow
1955

The Legend of the Boy and the Eagle
1967

Mafia on the Bounty
1980

Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
1974

Cat in the Cage
1978