Robert John Wagner Jr. (/ˈwæɡnər/; born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television, best known for starring in the television shows It Takes a Thief (1968–70), Switch (1975–78), and Hart to Hart (1979–84). He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men and has a recurring role as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. on the police procedural NCIS.
"I started off as an ingenue," recalled Wagner. "I was 19 years old. I was the boy next door. But you always felt you could work your way up, that you could have a better part in the next picture. {Head of Fox} Daryl Zanuck was always placing me in different positions."[5]
Wagner's first film for Fox was Halls of Montezuma (1951) a World War Two film. Wagner had a support role, with Richard Widmark as the star. The studio then had him perform a similar function in another war movie, The Frogmen (1951), again with Widmark; the cast also included another young male under contract to the studio, Jeffrey Hunter, with whom Wagner would often work. Let's Make It Legal (1951) was a comedy where Wagner again supported an older star, in this case Claudette Colbert.[6]
"You were part of 20th Century Fox," he said. "You felt proud of being part of the organization. When I wasn't working, I was on the road, going out and selling movies or dancing on the stage and meeting the public. They never let you rest."[5]
Fox gave Wagner his first starring role in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953). Reviews were poor but the movie was only the third ever to be shot in CinemaScope and was a big hit.[7]
Also popular was a Western, Broken Lance (1954), where Wagner supported Spencer Tracy for director Edward Dmytryk, appearing as Tracy's son. Fox gave Wagner the lead role in an expensive spectacular, Prince Valiant (1954). While popular, critical reception was poor and Wagner later joked his wig in the movie made him look like Jane Wyman. He was teamed with Jeffrey Hunter in a Western, White Feather (1955).[6]
Wagner was borrowed by Paramount for The Mountain (1956), directed by Dmytryk, where Wagner was cast as Spencer Tracy's brother, having played his son just two years earlier in the same director's Broken Lance. He received more critical acclaim for the lead in A Kiss Before Dying (1956), from the novel by Ira Levin; it was made for Crown Productions, a company of Darryl F. Zanuck's brother in law (the leads were all under contract to Fox) and released through United Artists.[citation needed]
Back at Fox he was Between Heaven and Hell (1956), a war movie, and The True Story of Jesse James (1957), playing the lead role for director Nicholas Ray (Jeffrey Hunter was Frank). Both movies were box office disappointments and it seemed Wagner was unable to make the transition to top level star. This appeared confirmed when he was the lead in Stopover Tokyo (1957). In 1959, Wagner disparaged the film:
When I started at Fox in 1950 they were making sixty five pictures a year. Now they're lucky if they make thirty. There was a chance to get some training in B pictures. Then TV struck. Everything went big and they started sticking me into Cinemascope spectacles. One day, smiling Joe Juvenile with no talent was doing a role intended for John Wayne. That was in a dog called Stopover Tokyo. I've really had to work to keep up.[8]
Wagner's first marriage to Wood had broken up and he relocated to Europe. He had a small role in The Longest Day (1962), produced by Daryl Zanuck for Fox. He had a larger part in The Condemned of Altona (1962), a commercial and critical disappointment despite being directed by Vittorio de Sica. He also played Mr. Roberts on stage.[9]
Wagner signed with Universal Studios in 1966 starring in the films How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a made-for-TV movie released in the United Kingdom as Deadly Roulette, and Banning (1967). He returned to Italy to make a caper film for MGM, The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968), but it was not a success.[citation needed]
Television star
In 1967, Lew Wasserman of Universal convinced Wagner to make his television series debut in It Takes a Thief (1968–70). ""I was opposed to doing Thief," Wagner said later. "But Lew Wasserman said: 'I want you to be in TV Guide every week. This is your medium, you've got to try it, you'll be great.' Roland Kibbee wrote the part for me, and I would have missed all that if I hadn't listened to Lew."[11]
While the success of The Pink Panther and Harper began Wagner's comeback, the successful two-and-a-half seasons of his first TV series completed it. In this series, he acted with Fred Astaire, who played his father. Wagner was a longtime friend of Astaire, having gone to school with Astaire's eldest son, Peter. Wagner's performance would earn him an Emmy nomination for Best TV Actor.[9]
Wagner's friend and agent Albert Broccoli suggested that he audition to play James Bond, but he decided it was not right for him.[12]
Wagner appeared in a pilot for a series that did not eventuate, City Beneath the Sea (1971). The following year he produced and cast himself opposite Bette Davis in the television movie Madame Sin, which was released in foreign markets as a feature film,[13]
He was a regular in the BBC/Universal World War II prisoner-of-war drama Colditz (1972–74) for much of its run. He reunited with McQueen, along with Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway, in the disaster filmThe Towering Inferno released in the same year. It was a massive hit, although Wagner's part was relatively small.[9]
Switch
By the mid-1970s, Wagner's television career was at its peak with the television series Switch (1975–78) opposite Eddie Albert, after re-signing a contract with Universal Studios in 1974. Before Switch, Albert was a childhood hero of Wagner, after he watched the movie Brother Rat along with a few others. The friendship started in the early 1960s, where he also co-starred in a couple of Albert's movies. After the series' end, the two remained friends until Albert's death on May 26, 2005. Wagner spoke at his funeral, and gave a testimonial about his longtime friendship with him.[citation needed]
In partial payment for starring together in the Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg production of the TV movie The Affair, Wagner and Natalie Wood were given a share in three TV series that the producers were developing for ABC.[14] Only one reached the screen, the very successful TV series Charlie's Angels, for which Wagner and Wood had a 50% share, though Wagner was to spend many years in court arguing with Spelling and Goldberg over what was defined as profit.[15]
Wagner's third successful series was Hart to Hart, which co-starred Stefanie Powers and ran from 1979 to 1984. No one else was seriously considered for the role; George Hamilton had a high profile at the time and was suggested but producer Aaron Spelling said that if he was cast "the audience will resent him as Hart for being that rich. But no one will begrudge RJ [Wagner] a nickel."[16]
He played an insurance investigator in the TV series Lime Street (1985) but the show did not last long.[9]
In 1985 he reflected, "Bad-guy roles work if they're really good parts, but they don't come along very often. I think that what I've been doing has worked for me. Sure I'd like to do a Clint Eastwood, grizzled, down-and- out guy, but there aren't many scripts like that... What has been projected for me is an international quality that can take me anywhere and get me into all kind of involvements; to do otherwise would mean a character role."Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
Wagner played Love Letters on stage with Powers.[17] They also reprised their Hart characters in a series of TV movies.[18]
In 2005, Wagner became the television spokesman for the Senior Lending Network, a reverse mortgage lender and in 2010 he began serving as a spokesman for the Guardian First Funding Group, also a reverse mortgage lender. As of June 2011, Guardian First Funding was acquired by Urban Financial Group, who continue to use Mr. Wagner as their spokesperson.[19][20]
In 2007, Wagner had a role in the BBC/AMC series Hustle. In season four's premiere, Wagner played a crooked Texan being taken for half a million dollars. As Wagner is considered "a suave icon of American caper television, including It Takes a Thief and Hart to Hart", Robert Glenister (Hustle's fixer, Ash Morgan) commented that "to have one of the icons of that period involved is a great bonus for all of us".[21]
Wagner also played the pivotal role of President James Garfield in the comedy/horror film Netherbeast Incorporated (2007). The role was written with Wagner in mind. He had a recurring role of a rich suitor to the main characters' mother on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. His most recent appearances on the show were in May 2008.
On December 28, 1957, the 27-year-old Wagner married 19-year-old actress Natalie Wood. They separated in June 1961 and divorced on April 27, 1962.[27]
While working on location in Europe, Wagner reconnected with an old friend, actress Marion Marshall. In the spring of 1963, after a brief courtship, Wagner, Marshall, and her two children from her marriage to Stanley Donen moved back to America.[12] Wagner and Marshall married on July 22, 1963, in the Bronx Courthouse. Soon after, they had a daughter, Katie Wagner (born May 11, 1964). They divorced on October 14, 1971,[28] after eight years of marriage. In 1971, Wagner was engaged to Tina Sinatra.[12]
In early 1972, Wagner reconnected with Wood and remarried her on July 16, 1972 after a six-month courtship. Their only child together, Courtney Wagner, was born on March 9, 1974.
On September 21, 2006, he became a first-time grandfather when Katie Wagner, his daughter with Marshall, gave birth to her son Riley John Wagner-Lewis.[29]
Natalie Wood drowning
On November 29, 1981, Wood drowned near their yacht Splendour while it was moored near Catalina Island; also on board were Wagner; Christopher Walken, who was co-starring with her in the motion picture Brainstorm; and Dennis Davern, the Splendour's captain. Wagner subsequently became the legal guardian of Wood's daughter Natasha Gregson, then 11. He became estranged from his former sister-in-law, Lana Wood.[30][31]
Wagner and actress Jill St. John began a relationship in February 1982.[32] After eight years together, they married on May 26, 1990. In 1999, an altercation occurred at a Vanity Fair shoot in Los Angeles between Jill St. John and Lana Wood, both of whom appeared in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever (1971). When photographer Annie Leibovitz asked for a picture of Jill St. John and Wood together, St. John was so adamantly opposed to the idea that it reduced Wood to tears. Her publicist, however, said it was Wagner who vetoed the photo: "I know [the Wagner family] would rather not have the current Mrs. Wagner shot with Natalie's sister".[33]
In November 2011, thirty years after Natalie Wood's death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened its investigation after Davern told NBC News that he lied to police during the initial inquiry and claimed that a fight between Wood and Wagner had led to her drowning.[34] After nine months of further investigation, Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran amended Wood's death certificate and changed the cause of her death from accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors".[35] The amended document also states that the circumstances of how Wood ended up in the water are "not clearly established".[35] The police however originally stated that Wagner is not suspected of causing her death, but he has refused to speak to detectives.[36]
On February 1, 2018, Wagner was named a "person of interest" in the death of Natalie Wood by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.[37]
Wagner, Robert J. (with Scott Eyman) (2008). Pieces of My Heart: A Life. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN978-0-06-137331-2.
Wagner, Robert J. (with Scott Eyman) (2014). You Must Remember This: The Life and Style of Hollywood's Golden Age. New York: Viking. ISBN978-0-670-02609-8.
Wagner, Robert J. (with Scott Eyman) (2016). I Loved Her in the Movies: Memories of Hollywood's Legendary Actresses. New York: Viking. ISBN978-0-525-42911-1.
^p.34 Wagner, Robert & Eyman, Scott Pieces of My Heart Random House, 2010
^ abcQ. & A.; Busy, Ageless Robert Wagner Sits Down for a Heart to Heart: [Home Edition]
King, Susan. Los Angeles Times 27 Mar 1999: 2.
^ abcdThe Life Story of ROBERT WAGNER
Picture Show; London Vol. 60, Iss. 1573, (May 23, 1953): 12.
^Drama: Robert Wagner to Star in 'Lord Vanity;' Heavy Giles Role to Douglas
Schallert, Edwin. Los Angeles Times 2 Dec 1953: B9.
^PRESENTING A HAPPY 'ACT': WAGNER AND WOOD By THOMAS McDONALD HOLLYWOOD.. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 14 June 1959: X7.
^ abcdeRobert Wagner, Durably Dapper: The Actor Moves Into '55 Lime Street,' His Fourth Series, and This Time He's a Father Durable Robert Wagner
By Megan Rosenfeld Washington Post 9 Aug 1985: E1.
^p. 249 Curtis, Tony & Golenbock, Peter American Prince: My Autobiography Random House, 30 Mar 2010
^MOVIES; Ever the Man About Town; After a half-century in Hollywood, the roles keep coming for the ever charming Robert Wagner.: [Home Edition]
Bergman, Anne. Los Angeles Times3 Feb 2000: CAL.12.
^Tom Mankiewicz, My Life as a Mankiewicz: An Insider's Journey Through Hollywood (with Robert Crane) University Press of Kentucky 2012 p 222
^THEATER / JAN HERMAN A Little Heart-to-Heart Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers Turn a New Page on Old TV Romance in `Love Letters' Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers Will Be Airing Their `Love Letters' in Cerritos: [Orange County Edition]
Herman, Jan. Los Angeles Times 4 June 1993: 23
^Can Two Harts Win Friday Night's Hand? THE FIRST OF FOUR MYSTERY MOVIES ON NBC TESTS THE SPARKS: [Home Edition]
King, Susan. Los Angeles Times 31 Oct 1993: 4
^"Flesh and Blood" (2010), "Broken Arrow" (2010), "Sins of the Father" (2011), "You Better Watch Out" (2012), "Dressed to Kill" (2014), "The Artful Dodger" (2015), "No Good Deed" (2015), "Family First" (2016), "Reasonable Doubts" (2016) and "Nonstop" (2017)
