Posted on 12/06/2016 7:24:00 AM PST by Olog-hai
Van Williams, who portrayed the masked crime-fighter The Green Hornet in a memorable but short-lived companion TV series to Batman in the 1960s, has died. He was 82.
The actor, who earlier played bachelor private eye Kenny Madison on two Warner Bros. Television detective series, Bourbon Street Beat and Surfside 6, died Nov. 29 of kidney failure at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., his wife of 57 years, Vicki, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had just one kidney since he was 25, she said. […]
Famed martial-arts expert Bruce Lee, then unknown in the U.S., played Kato, Reid’s manservant. He drove his boss around town in their ominous, gadget-packed Black Beauty car. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
Best theme song ever.
“Let’s roll, Kato”
Always enjoyed the ‘Green Hornet’ when I was a teen because it avoided the god-awful camp of the ‘Batman’ television show. Bruce Lee was an added bonus.
RIP. A good actor in a so-so series (The Green Hornet).
The series paired martial art master Bruce Lee (Kato) against Burt Ward (Robin) in a fight scene in which they fought to an apparent draw. Years later Burt Ward admitted this was a mistake, “Robin should have gotten his ass kicked.”
Best theme song? I looked it up on YouTube and...um...well, I wouldn’t rank it in the top 500.
Played straight man to Bruce Lee’s Kato. It was only on a season, but I loved it as a small boy. RIP Van. Thanks for everything.
They tried to play down the fight odds with the Hornet telling Kato, “We have to go easy on them.” Kato would have destroyed Robin and we all knew it.
I liked that show when I was a kid. I remember being surprised when it was cancelled after only one season.
Great show.
Both actors in the TV series played it super cool with a hint of mischief and did a fantastic job. The latest movie was just two buffoons. Not cool.
Bruce Lee = Kato = O.J.’s houseguest. You can’t make this stuff up.
Well, I liked it a lot. Everyone has different tastes.
I loved The Green Hornet as a kid. A couple of years ago, I caught some re-runs on METV. There was still an aura of coolness about it, with Van Williams and Bruce Lee and the Billy May/Al Hirt trumpet variation on "Flight of the Bumblebee" as the main theme. But the plots were really fairly boring and predictable. Aside form the Hornet and Kato suiting up and dashing out of their secret lair in the "Black Beauty", there wasn't all that much to it.
That show was on around the same time as the campy Batman series and was more like the modern day comic book based films. In other words it was about fifty years ahead of its time. Bruce Lee as your sidekick? It was great and I remember being sad that it was cancelled by the network suits after just one season.
I loved that show. He was so handsome!
Another of my favorite television show lead characters died last month. Robert Vaughn (d. November 11) played Napoleon Solo on ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.)
That show and the Hornet were definitely on my top ten with UNCLE being #1.
1940, actually, and it was a serial shown in movie theaters, so the title of “TV’s Green Hornet” for Williams is accurate.
The “Black Beauty” car in the serial was a 1937 Lincoln Zephyr V12, though. Keye Luke (Master Po from the “Kung Fu” TV show) played Kato.
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