Article Last Updated: 09/27/2005 12:36:02 AM

TV's Maxwell Smart, Inspector Gadget dies at 82
By Adam Bernstein
The Washington Post

Don Adams: 1923-2005

Don Adams as Agent Maxwell Smart, left, and as he appeared in 2002.

Don Adams, the television comedian best known for playing a bumbling secret agent on the 1960s spy spoof ''Get Smart,'' died Sunday in Beverly Hills, Calif. Adams, who had lymphoma and a lung infection, was 82.

Adams won three Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, a character created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. When they stopped writing for the program, Adams contributed scripts and directed episodes. The show ran from 1965 to 1970, first on NBC and on CBS the final year.

Smart's partner at the fictional U.S. intelligence agency named CONTROL was the sexy, straight-laced Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon. Together,

Actor Don Adams is shown in this 1995 file photo in the character of Maxwell Smart in the revival of "Get Smart," which appeared on Fox, but lasted only seven episodes.

they irritated their boss, the Chief (Edward Platt), and fought the agents of nemesis KAOS.

Unlike James Bond's arsenal of deadly devices, Smart's tools of spycraft were a series of jokey inventions, such as a shoe phone that he held to his ear to take incoming calls.

With a distinctive voice once described as a nasal staccato, Adams delivered his trademark expression ''Sorry about that'' whenever he fouled up or ''Would you believe . . . '' whenever Smart got into trouble on the program.

One memorable exchange had Smart trying to pass for a music expert.

''I once listened to three weeks of Beethoven,'' Smart says.

''I don't believe it,'' another character says.

''Would you believe two weeks of Brahms?''

''No.''

''A day of Looney Tunes?''

Adams found it hard to escape the show's typecasting and persuade people that his offscreen voice was a register below that of Maxwell Smart. He spoke of a wish to play drama, but his efforts failed. He played Maxwell Smart in a feature film, 1980's ''The Nude Bomb,'' about a fashion designer who threatens to destroy people's clothing, and for a 1995 Fox network revival of ''Get Smart'' that lasted seven episodes.

He also was the title character's voice for the 1980s cartoon series, ''Inspector Gadget.'' However, Adams said he ''never saw one of them. They aired at 8 a.m. on Saturdays. I wouldn't get up for the second coming at 8 a.m.''

Adams was born Donald James Yarmy in New York on April 13, 1923. His father, of Hungarian descent, managed restaurants and presided over a home filled with loud, overlapping conversation.

Adams said he had little use for school (''I was the great truant of my day'') and instead spent his days at the movie theaters on 42nd Street. ''I had the fundamentals - divide, subtract,'' he once told The Saturday Evening Post.

When America entered World War II, he served in the Marine Corps and participated in the invasion of Guadalcanal. Adams contracted blackwater fever and was hospitalized for more than a year at a Navy hospital in Wellington, New Zealand.

After his discharge, he hung around beaches in Florida, eventually teaming with a friend to do impersonations of movie stars. Their early engagements were strip bars (''the toilets of the world,'' he said) where he shared the stage with such variety acts as a woman who had birds tear off her clothes.

Adams refused to use ''blue'' material and so he was fired. He supported his growing family - he had four daughters with his first wife, a nightclub singer - by working as a commercial artist.

In 1954, he befriended comic and writer Bill Dana, best known for his bellhop character Jose Jimenez, and they refined Adams' jokes and stage personality for various television appearances.

One of their favorite bits was Adams' impersonation of suave film sleuth William Powell: ''There's your man, Inspector.''

He played a variation of that role as the incompetent house detective on ''The Bill Dana Show'' from 1963 to 1965. At the time, he also was the voice of the penguin cartoon character Tennessee Tuxedo.

I still remember my Get Smart lunch box (yet another item Mother threw-away), and the Exploding Time Bomb Game that Santa never brought...


The cone of silence...

New, improved model...

But Max can't figure it out!

Collectible dolls - set sells for $69.96