Robert Wagner(I)

R.J. Wagner was born 1930 in Detroit, the son of a steel executive. His family moved to L.A. when he was six. Always wanting to be an actor, he held a variety of jobs (including one as a golf caddy for Clark Gable) while pursuing his goal, but it was while dining with his parents at a Beverly Hills restaurant that he was discovered by a talent scout. After making his uncredited screen debut in Années de jeunesse (1950), Wagner was signed by 20th Century Fox, which carefully built him up toward stardom. He played romantic leads with ease, but it was not until he essayed the two-scene role of a shell-shocked war veteran in Un refrain dans mon coeur (1952) that studio executives recognized his potential as a dramatic actor. He went on to play the title roles in Prince Vaillant (1954) and Jesse James, le brigand bien-aimé (1957), and portrayed a cold-blooded murderer in L'étreinte fatale (1956). In the mid-'60s, however, his film career skidded to a stop after La Panthère rose (1963). Several years of unemployment followed before Wagner made a respectable transition to television as star of the lighthearted espionage series Opération vol (1968). He also starred on the police series Switch (1975), but Wagner's greatest success was opposite Stefanie Powers on the internationally popular Pour l'amour du risque (1979), which ran from 1979 through 1984 and has since been sporadically revived in TV-movie form (another series, Le gentleman mène l'enquète (1985), was quickly canceled due to the tragic death of Wagner's young co-star, Samantha Smith). Considered one of Hollywood's nicest citizens, Robert Wagner has continued to successfully pursue a leading man career; he has also launched a latter-day stage career, touring with Stefanie Powers in the readers' theater presentation "Love Letters". He found success playing Number Two, a henchman to Dr. Evil in Austin Powers (1997) and its sequels, and in 2007, he began playing Teddy Leopold, a recurring role on the CBS sitcom Mon oncle Charlie (2003). Wagner is married to Jill St. John and lives in Aspen.