PictureLux - Hollywood, Celebrity and Entertainment Stock Photos | Peter Graves, Star of Mission: Impossible, Airplane!, Dead at 83

Mar

2010

Peter Graves, Star of Mission: Impossible, Airplane!, Dead at 83

Written by Picturelux Celebrity Photos Admin

Tonight we bid a fond farewell to Mission Impossible's Mr. Phelps...Peter Graves dead at 83 of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, CA

Peter Graves played his most well known television character from 1967 to 1973 in “Mission Impossible,” reprising it in 1988-1990. He was Jim Phelps, the leader of the Impossible Missions Force, a secret government organization that conducted dangerous undercover assignments (which he always chose to accept). After the tape summarizing the objective self-destructed, the team would use, not violence, but elaborate con games to trap the villains. In his role, Mr. Graves was a model of cool, deadpan efficiency.

According to "Biography" he was appalled when his agent sent him the script for the role of a pedophile pilot in “Airplane” (1980). “I tore my hair and ranted and raved and said, ‘This is insane,’ he recalled on “Biography” in 1997. Some of the role’s lines (“Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?”) looked at first as if they could get him thrown in jail, never mind ruining his career.

Besides his brother, James Arness, he is survived by his wife, Joan Graves, and three daughters, Amanda Lee Graves, Claudia King Graves and Kelly Jean Graves.

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