Frank De Kova profile
Actor profile

Frank De Kova

17th March 1910 New York City, New York, USA Acting

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.

56 Movies 85 TV Shows 143 Credits
Filmography

Movies & TV Shows

Coonskin poster
Coonskin 20th August 1975 as Managan (voice) / Ruby (voice) (uncredited)
Cowboy poster
Cowboy 23rd January 1958 as Alcaide
Reprisal! poster
Reprisal! 2nd November 1956 as Charlie Washackle
Passion poster
Passion 6th October 1954 as Martinez (as Frank de Kova)
F Troop poster
F Troop 14th September 1965 as Chief Wild Eagle
F Troop poster
F Troop 14th September 1965 as Wild Eagle
Gunslinger poster
Gunslinger 9th February 1961 as Don Ignacio Alesandro
Thriller poster
Thriller 13th September 1960 as Lieutenant Vincoli
The Rebel poster
The Rebel 4th October 1959 as Richard Aloysius Sturgis
Rawhide poster
Rawhide 9th January 1959 as Chief Tawyawp
Lawman poster
Lawman 5th October 1958 as Jed Barker
Cheyenne poster
Cheyenne 20th September 1955 as Spotted Bull
Cheyenne poster
Cheyenne 20th September 1955 as Sitting Bull
Cheyenne poster
Cheyenne 20th September 1955 as Chief Johnny Cake
Gunsmoke poster
Gunsmoke 10th September 1955 as Mulligan Rives