Claude Marion Akins

 Claude Marion Akins (May 25, 1926 – January 27, 1994)

He was an actor with a long career on stage, screen, and television. Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever (or less than clever) tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s television series B. J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spin-off series. Akins was cast in a large number of television series, including The Adventures of Superman,, in which he plays a villainous conspirator, Crusader, and I Love Lucy. Much of his work was on westerns, including Frontier, My Friend Flicka (three times), Boots and Saddles, Northwest Passage, The Restless Gun (four times), Sheriff of Cochise, Wagon Train (four times), Overland Trail, Frontier Circus, The Tall Man, The Rebel, The Big Valley, Daniel Boone, The Legend of Jesse James, Death Valley Days, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (four times), The Rifleman (three times), Rawhide, Gunsmoke (10 times), Bonanza (four times), The Alaskans (twice), and The Texan (twice). Akins died of cancer in Pasadena, California, on January 27, 1994.