Would you believe it has been 61 years? Get Smart premiered on NBC on September 18, 1965, and from the first time Maxwell Smart walked through that long hallway of slamming doors, America was hooked on a secret agent who could foil KAOS while barely managing to answer his own shoe. The show ran five seasons, four on NBC and a final one on CBS, before signing off in May 1970 after 138 episodes.
It came from two comedy writers with a simple, slightly wicked idea. “No one had ever done a show about a CIA agent who was an imbecile. We wanted to be the first,” co-creator Mel Brooks told Emmy magazine for the show’s 60th anniversary. He and Buck Henry got their wish, and the show won seven Emmys, including back-to-back awards for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1968 and 1969. Here is what happened to the agents of CONTROL and their enemies, and who is still with us today.
Is Don Adams Still Alive?
Don Adams was born Donald James Yarmy in New York City on April 13, 1923, and by the time he became Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, he was already a stand-up comic known for a clipped, nasal delivery. That voice turned lines like “Would you believe…” and “Missed it by that much” into national catchphrases, and Brooks credited Adams with inventing the “Would you believe” routine himself.
Adams won the Emmy for lead actor in a comedy three years in a row, from 1967 through 1969. After the show, a new generation knew his voice as Inspector Gadget, and he played Max again in The Nude Bomb in 1980, the 1989 TV movie Get Smart, Again! and a short-lived 1995 revival. “It was a special show that became a cult classic of sorts, and I made a lot of money for it,” he said in 1995, as the Associated Press reported.
Don Adams died on September 25, 2005, at 82, of lymphoma and a lung infection, according to the AP obituary published in The Seattle Times.
Is Edward Platt Still Alive?
As the Chief, Edward Platt spent five seasons as the long-suffering boss who had to keep sending Max into the field anyway. Platt was born on Staten Island on February 14, 1916, trained at Juilliard and sang bass-baritone with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra before Hollywood found him. Film fans remember him in Rebel Without a Cause and as Cary Grant’s lawyer in North by Northwest.
Edward Platt died on March 19, 1974, at just 58. Reports at the time attributed his death to heart failure. Years later, his son said his father had struggled with depression and that his death was a suicide, as his Wikipedia biography and Turner Classic Movies note.
Is Robert Karvelas Still Alive?
Robert Karvelas played Larrabee, the Chief’s hopelessly dim assistant, and he had a very good connection to the star. He was Don Adams’s first cousin. Born in New York City on April 3, 1921, Karvelas had been a Golden Gloves boxing champion as a Marine and later worked as a stockbroker. He returned as Larrabee in The Nude Bomb and the 1989 reunion movie.
Robert Karvelas died on December 5, 1991, at 70, according to Wikipedia and IMDb. His cause of death was not made public.
Is King Moody Still Alive?
Every great villain needs a henchman, and King Moody’s Shtarker, the eager KAOS sidekick to Bernie Kopell’s Siegfried, was one of the best. Born in New York City on December 6, 1929, Moody had a second career that millions of children saw without ever knowing his name, because he played Ronald McDonald in McDonald’s commercials from 1969 to 1985.
King Moody died in Tarzana, California, on February 7, 2001, at 71, according to Wikipedia and IMDb.
Is Dick Gautier Still Alive?
Dick Gautier played Hymie, the KAOS-built robot who defected to CONTROL and took every instruction a little too literally. Born in Culver City, California, on October 30, 1931, Gautier had already earned a Tony nomination as the original Conrad Birdie in Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway in 1960. He went on to play Robin Hood in Mel Brooks’s When Things Were Rotten, voiced Rodimus Prime in The Transformers and published books as a caricaturist.
Dick Gautier died on January 13, 2017, at 85, after a long illness, as CBS News and TheWrap reported.
Is Dave Ketchum Still Alive?
Dave Ketchum’s Agent 13 had the least glamorous assignments in spy history, squeezing into mailboxes, vending machines, trash cans and airport lockers to pass along messages. Born in Quincy, Illinois, on February 4, 1928, Ketchum appeared as Agent 13 in 13 episodes, co-wrote an episode of the show and wrote for The Andy Griffith Show and Petticoat Junction. He also starred in Camp Runamuck and I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster.
Dave Ketchum was one of the show’s longest-lived stars, and he played Agent 13 again in the 1989 TV movie and the 1995 revival. He died on August 10, 2025, in Thousand Oaks, California, at 97, as The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times reported.
Is Bernie Kopell Still Alive?
Yes. Bernie Kopell was born in Brooklyn on June 21, 1933, which makes him 93. As Siegfried, the KAOS operative with the thick German accent and the rigid sense of order, he became one of the show’s most quoted villains. He gave a lot of the credit to his star. “Don was an absolute prince to me,” Kopell told the Baltimore Post-Examiner in 2016. When he once asked Adams if he was overplaying the part, Adams answered, “NO. You’re setting me up.”
Kopell went on to spend nine seasons as Doc Adam Bricker on The Love Boat and played Siegfried again in the 1989 reunion, and he even made a cameo in the 2008 Get Smart movie with Steve Carell. Fans still stop him for the old role. “They want Siegfried. It’s amazing; it’s still funny,” he said. Last November, at 92, he was back aboard a Princess “Love Boat” cruise, as People reported. You can read more about how Kopell changed his Love Boat character’s name.
Is Barbara Feldon Still Alive?
Yes. Barbara Feldon was born Barbara Anne Hall in Butler, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1933, and she turned 93 this spring. Before Get Smart, she had won The $64,000 Question and slinked across a tiger rug in a famous Revlon commercial. Brooks knew right away. “We said, ‘Don’t send us anymore! We’ve got our 99,'” he told Emmy magazine. Buck Henry had first wanted to call her Agent 100, as Feldon told The Seattle Times, but decided it didn’t sound like a girl’s number.
Max and 99 fell in love and married on screen, and the chemistry was real on camera even if it stayed there. “Though Max and 99 had instant chemistry, Don and I didn’t,” she told Remind Magazine in 2023, though she told The Seattle Times that when they reunited years later, “there was just this wave of affection that had been there all along.” She earned Emmy nominations in 1968 and 1969, returned as 99 in 1989 and 1995, and later wrote Living Alone and Loving It and the memoir Getting Smarter.
She lives in New York and gave a new interview just last month, at 93, telling a story about how that Revlon ad nearly got her fired, according to People. And she still gives credit where it is due. “I thank Mel Brooks and Buck Henry for creating Agent 99, who was my imaginary mentor,” she told Remind.
Mel Brooks, the man who dreamed up the shoe phone, turned 100 this June and is still working. Buck Henry died in 2020. Talk of a new Get Smart reboot keeps coming back, but for anyone who watched in 1965, there is only one Agent 99. Sixty-one years later, she is still with us, and that is one piece of good news that needs no Cone of Silence.
