Morning Man Classic: Kent McCord who turns 84!

For so many of us, the oh-so handsome Kent McCord was our first crush as he starred in 175 episodes of the classic NBC police drama Adam 12 as officer Jim Reed opposite Martin Milner.

Kent, who turned 84 yesterday, went on to be of the leads in the ABC sci-fi series Galactica 1980 and on the 1989 series UNSUB and had a recurring role on seaQuest DSV in the mid-’90s. His semi-regular role of Jack Crichton on Farscape, a sci-fi TV cult hit that ran from 1999-2003, gained him lots of younger fans. There’s also been plenty of voiceover work, scores of television guest spots (Silk Stalkings, MacGyver, Murder, She Wrote) and some movies (Airplane II-The Sequel, Predator II, and Megiddo-The Omega Code 2).

It’s no surprise that the LA native’s first acting gig was on The Adventure of Ozzie and Harriet since he was a buddy of Ricky Nelson, whom he met at USC. McCord appeared in about 50 episodes from 1962-66, and remembers one scene particularly well.

“I started on that show working background, standing in for Ricky,” Kent told me in a 2008 interview. “One day, they were doing a fraternity show where there was a party going on — early-day ‘Risky Business’-type thing — while Ozzie and Harriet were away from the house. They came home early and I was standing at the door with at my date. Ozzie asked, ‘Where’s Rick?’ and I said, ‘Who’s Rick?’ Those were the first two words I ever said in pictures.”

Earlier this year, Kent did an interview with Steve Kmetko for Steve’s terrific Still Here Hollywood podcast which I always find time to watch. Long before Adam-12, Kent’s life was already taking remarkable turns. Kent shared never-before-heard stories about working with Jack Webb, the realism behind Adam-12, how the series became a training tool for police departments across America, and the surprising impact the show had on law enforcement.

See video below: