Robert Logan, best known as the valet on the ABC detective show “77 Sunset Strip,” has died. He was 82.
Anthony Francis Logan confirmed to The Times on Thursday that his father died on May 6 of natural causes in Estero, Florida. His family waited until this week to announce his death to ensure his official obituary was completed..
“He was an amazing person… He was a fantastic father, very adventurous and very active, very similar to Skip Robinson in the movies,” Logan said.[We are] “How lucky I was to have experienced that and what a blessing to have known him.”
Robert Francis Logan Jr. was born in Brooklyn on May 29, 1941. He was the eldest son of eight children born to bank executive Francis Logan and Catherine Quigley. He attended the University of Arizona on a baseball scholarship, where he was discovered by a talent agent for Warner Bros.
Logan's breakthrough role was that of J.R. Hale, the “hip, slang-heavy” valet on the detective series “77 Sunset Strip.” The series starred Efren Zimbalist Jr. and Roger Smith as wisecracking, womanizing detectives Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer, who work out of an office at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Logan portrayed Hale in 50 episodes of the show's fourth and fifth seasons. He eventually replaced previous valet Kookie, played by Edd Byrnes, who joined the detective duo.
Following the cancellation of “77 Sunset Strip,” Logan appeared in episodes of “Dr. Kildare” and “Mr. Novak.” He reunited with Byrnes for the musical comedy “Beach Ball” in 1965 and co-starred with Fess Parker as Jericho Jones on NBC’s “Daniel Boone.”
Cast members of the detective television series “77 Sunset Strip” sit in a convertible outside a diner circa 1963. Edd Byrnes, from left, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, Louis Quinn (holding a dog on his lap) and Robert Logan.
(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Logan was also known for his role as Skip Robinson in the 1975 film “The Wilderness Family.” To escape the grime and crime of city life, Skip Robinson, a construction worker in Los Angeles, moves into a cabin he built in the Rocky Mountains with his wife Susan Damante and their two young children.
The independent film was a huge success, grossing $28.8 million at the box office. The success spawned two sequels: “The Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family” in 1978 and “Mountain Family Robinson” in 1979.
His last major role was as a rocket engineer and estranged husband in the 1986 erotic romance film “A Night in Heaven.”
Logan was preceded in death by his parents, Frank and Catherine, sisters Maureen Messrah and Carol Dawson, brother Francis Logan Jr., niece Brittany Bertram, and nephew-in-law, Scott Wilson.
He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Alina; his daughter, Courtney Worthington; his son, Anthony; his daughter-in-law, Hayley; his three granddaughters, Elsa Worthington, Ingrid and Alma Logan; as well as his siblings Logan “Patty” Lahey, Theresa Bertram, Janet Haines, Timothy Logan; and many nieces and nephews.
Logan is buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
