25 Classic TV Stars Who Were Completely Different Off Screen

Twenty-five more classic television stars who were completely different off screen, counted down from #25 to #1. Jack Tripper's klutz was a trained actor and the son of a singing cowboy. The dumbest spy on television was a Marine who caught blackwater fever in the Pacific. The calm sensei of The Karate Kid grew up in a camp. And #1, Robert Clary, the tiny French cook of Hogan's Heroes, was a real prisoner in the camps of World War II. The characters made us laugh every week. The lives behind them were something else. Here is who they were, and what happened next. IN THIS VIDEO 0:00 Intro 0:31 #25 John Ritter 2:13 #24 Isabel Sanford 3:54 #23 Nicholas Colasanto 5:31 #22 Telly Savalas 6:45 #21 Florence Henderson 8:22 #20 Tom Bosley 10:01 #19 Fess Parker 11:35 #18 Ken Curtis 13:11 #17 Estelle Getty 14:49 #16 James Best 16:38 #15 Fred MacMurray 18:20 #14 David McCallum 19:59 #13 Jack Soo 21:44 #12 Robert Young 23:23 #11 Larry Hagman 25:11 #10 Art Carney 26:54 #9 Jack Benny 28:45 #8 Sorrell Booke 30:32 #7 Elizabeth Montgomery 32:19 #6 Peter Falk 33:59 #5 Don Adams 35:43 #4 Robert Vaughn 37:32 #3 James Doohan 39:07 #2 Pat Morita 40:54 #1 Robert Clary 42:55 Final thoughts ABOUT THIS VIDEO Facts are drawn from news reports, interviews, memoirs and published histories; where accounts differ or rest on a single source, the narration says so. Images marked ILLUSTRATION are AI-generated and depict no real person. Thumbnail faces are real archival photographs, restored and colorized. Photographs are from Wikimedia Commons (public domain, CC0 or Creative Commons as credited below). If anything here looks mistaken, tell us in the comments and we will correct it. PUBLIC DOMAIN FOOTAGE (via the Internet Archive; uploader-stated status) - The Jack Benny Program, "Jack at the Supermarket" (1961) - Lock Up, "The Beau and Arrow Case" (1960) - The Witness, "Kid Twist" (1960) - Diagnosis: Unknown, "The Case of the Radiant Wine" (1960) PHOTO CREDITS (Wikimedia Commons; CC licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/) - 187Jeston (CC BY-SA 4.0) - 2BrianH (CC BY-SA 2.0) - Alan Light (CC BY 2.0) - C Thomas (CC BY 2.0) - Charlie Llewellin from Austin, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0) - City of Boston Archives from West Roxbury, United States (CC BY 2.0) - Douglas Jones (CC BY-SA 4.0) - Eva Rinaldi (CC BY-SA 2.0) - inkknife_2000 (CC BY-SA 2.0) - Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel, Maryland, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0) - Nancy Wong (CC BY-SA 3.0) - NBC Television (CC BY 4.0) - Pat Loika (CC BY 2.0) - R-E-AL, German Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) - Rob Bogaerts for Anefo (CC0 / CC BY-SA 3.0 nl) - The Yeti (CC BY-SA 3.0) - Toglenn (CC BY-SA 3.0) - TROS (CC BY-SA 3.0 nl) - Anonymous author, see file pages (CC BY-SA 3.0) Other photographs are public domain or CC0 publicity, press and government images. Full file pages are listed on Wikimedia Commons under each person's name. New classic television and Hollywood stories here regularly. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one. #ClassicTV #OldHollywood #TVLegends