Robert Culp, RIP

I've said before that this blog is no obituary, nor is it supposed to be a harbinger of bad news, but yet another one of my childhood favorite actors has passed away. Just yesterday at age 79, Robert Culp passed away. I remember him most from the TV show, I Spy, in which he costarred with Bill Cosby. But he also played the main character in the best Outer Limits episode of them all. Yeah, I know he was in two of them, but I'm talking about the one called, Demon with a Glass Hand, written by Harlan Ellison. In that one, he played a pivotal character on whom the survival of the human race depended after earth was conquered by invaders from outer space. It was a terrific episode, and it has a connection to my first book, KILLER OF KILLERS.

I didn't plan on revealing this until much later, but given the unfortunate circumstances, I will spill it. I named my book's main character, Trent Smith, after the role played by Robert Culp in that episode. Culp played an amnesiac from the future who wakes up in contemporary America, and all he can remember is his name. Trent. And in case you haven't seen that episode, I will not say what happens because I don't want to be a spoiler here.

But when I began writing my book, I proceeded with the idea that my main character would begin his path of Justice with an assumed name. Never do I reveal just what his real name is. But in molding the character, I figured to give him a name that he might have thought up on the spot. Thus, the last name of Smith. But I wanted something a little different than James or John, Luke, or Henry. It's when I remembered Robert Culp in The Outer Limits, and the character, Trent. So I figured, yeah...Trent Smith. I liked the sound of that. Thus in honor of Robert Culp and that episode, I went with Trent.


Here he is as the "Demon with a Glass Hand."

Robert Culp, RIP.