The Only ‘Adam-12’ Cast Members Still Alive Today

“One-Adam-12, One-Adam-12, see the man.” For seven seasons that flat, unhurried call from the dispatcher sent a black-and-white patrol car out into Los Angeles, and millions of families settled in to ride along. Adam-12 premiered on NBC on September 21, 1968, and it ran until May 20, 1975, for 174 episodes about two uniformed officers working an ordinary shift. There were no car chases worth bragging about and no detective geniuses. There was just a veteran, a rookie and whatever was waiting at the next address.

Jack Webb, the man behind Dragnet, created the show with R.A. Cinader, and he ran it with the same devotion to the real Los Angeles Police Department. The badges were genuine, as we found when we looked at why only ‘Dragnet’ and ‘Adam-12’ were allowed real LAPD badges, and so was the voice on the radio. The show even launched a spinoff, because Malloy and Reed turned up in the pilot of Emergency! in 1972. More than 50 years after the last shift ended, here is who from the Central Division squad room is still with us.

Is Fred Stromsoe Still Alive?

Sharp-eyed viewers knew Fred Stromsoe as Officer Woods, one of the familiar faces in roll call who backed up Malloy and Reed when a call went bad. What most of them never knew was how often they had already seen him without realizing it. Stromsoe was a working stuntman, and the falls, fights and tumbles he took doubled for Martin Milner, David Janssen, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Tab Hunter over the years.

Born in Denver on June 15, 1930, he had started in pictures in 1949 with a small part in the crime film Homicide. He went on to play guest roles on Gunsmoke, The Fugitive and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and he turned up in G.I. Blues with Elvis Presley and in Disney’s The Love Bug. His career ran all the way to 1991, which made him one of the busiest anonymous men in Hollywood.

Fred Stromsoe died of emphysema on September 30, 1994. He was 64. He was the first of the regular Adam-12 faces to go, and the next loss came less than a year later.

Is Gary Crosby Still Alive?

Every squad room needs a loudmouth, and Officer Ed Wells was Adam-12‘s. Gary Crosby played him as a cocky, glory-hunting cop who drove Malloy up the wall and gave the show some of its funniest moments. He had a famous name to live up to. Gary was the oldest son of Bing Crosby, and in 1950 the two of them recorded “Sam’s Song” and “Play a Simple Melody,” which became a hit on both sides of the record.

He sang with his brothers as the Crosby Brothers and hosted his own CBS radio show in the mid-1950s. He then worked steadily on screen, from A Private’s Affair with Barbara Eden and Sal Mineo to Girl Happy with Elvis in 1965. After Adam-12 he guested on Emergency! and The Rockford Files and sat on the panel of Match Game.

In 1983 he surprised the public with Going My Own Way, a memoir written with Ross Firestone that described his struggle with alcohol and a harsh childhood under his famous father. Bing’s biographer Gary Giddins later disputed much of it, and the debate still follows the book. Gary Crosby died of lung cancer on August 24, 1995, in Burbank, California, according to Wikipedia and an obituary carried by The Spokesman-Review. He was 62. The man who gave Malloy and Reed their orders lasted nearly another decade.

Is William Boyett Still Alive?

Sgt. William “Mac” MacDonald was the steady watch commander who ran roll call and kept an eye on his two favorite officers like a patient older brother. William Boyett played him for the show’s entire run. Jack Webb had already used him in his Dragnet productions, and before that Boyett had spent years in uniform on Highway Patrol alongside Broderick Crawford.

Born in Akron, Ohio, on January 3, 1927, he became one of television’s most trusted badges. He played a battalion chief on Emergency! and turned up on Perry Mason eight times. Later he appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation and in Disney’s The Rocketeer in 1991. Kent McCord never forgot him. “Bill was a delight to work with and made it one of the greatest pleasures of being on a series for seven years,” McCord told the Los Angeles Times when Boyett died.

William Boyett died on December 29, 2004, at a hospital in Mission Hills, California, of complications from pneumonia and kidney failure. He was 77. A few years later, the woman who first played Reed’s wife was gone too.

Is Mikki Jamison Still Alive?

Jim Reed was the rare TV cop who went home to a wife, and in the early seasons Jean Reed was played by Mikki Jamison. She appeared in three episodes as the young wife waiting up for a patrolman husband, and when she stepped away, Kristin Nelson took over the part.

Jamison was born Mikki McGoldrick in Spokane, Washington, on November 13, 1942, and her family’s obituary says that even as a little girl she wanted to be an actress. She studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and signed with Warner Bros., which named her one of its Deb Stars. That led to parts on Maverick, The Donna Reed Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, along with the 1965 beach movies Beach Ball and Ski Party.

She came back for a Wonder Woman episode in the 1970s and made her last film, The Sea Gypsies, in 1978. After that she sold real estate in Los Angeles and Spokane and later led tours from the Canadian Rockies to Nova Scotia. Mikki Jamison died in Spokane in June 2013 at the age of 70, according to her obituary in The Spokesman-Review. “Once a Spokanite, always a Spokanite,” her family wrote. Two years later, the show lost its anchor.

Is Martin Milner Still Alive?

Officer Pete Malloy was the heart of the show. When Adam-12 began, he was a burned-out veteran thinking about quitting the force, and training one more rookie was supposed to be his last job. Martin Milner made him calm and wry and quietly decent, and he stayed in the car for all seven seasons.

Milner was already a familiar face to TV fans. Born in Detroit on December 28, 1931, he had spent four years crossing the country as Tod Stiles on Route 66, filming on location in a Corvette from 1960 to 1964. He told an interviewer in 1997, as the Associated Press later recalled, that “once you get into Oklahoma and Texas on the route, the scenery is flat and boring.” After Adam-12 he starred in The Swiss Family Robinson for Irwin Allen and guested on Murder, She Wrote. In retirement he co-hosted a fishing show on San Diego radio.

The LAPD never forgot what he meant to it. “His depiction of a professional and tough yet compassionate cop led to thousands of men and women applying to become LAPD officers, including me,” Chief Charlie Beck said in 2015. Martin Milner died at his home in Carlsbad, California, on September 6, 2015. He was 83. His partner confirmed the news to the Associated Press. “I had a long, long friendship with Marty and we remained friends up till the end,” McCord said. “I was lucky to have him in my life.”

When the department sent Milner off with an “end of watch” call over the police radio, the voice making it belonged to someone viewers knew very well.

Is Shaaron Claridge Still Alive?

Shaaron Claridge never played a character. She was the real thing, a working LAPD radio operator whose voice sent One-Adam-12 to its calls in all but three episodes. We told the story of how she got the job in our piece on the real LAPD dispatcher behind ‘Adam-12’, and she appeared on screen only once, briefly, in the fifth season.

Born on October 1, 1938, she kept her day job at the department the whole time the show was on the air, and she retired from the LAPD in 1990. In 2015 she was the one who read the end of watch for Martin Milner. Shaaron Claridge died on September 15, 2021, in Minden, Nevada, according to Wikipedia and Law Officer, which reported the news from the Los Angeles Police Museum. She was 82. That leaves one man from the patrol car.

Is Kent McCord Still Alive?

Yes. Kent McCord, who played Officer Jim Reed, is still with us at 84. He was born Kent Franklin McWhirter in Los Angeles on September 26, 1942, and Jack Webb first put him in uniform as Reed on Dragnet 1967 before handing him the rookie’s seat in Malloy’s car. He grew up on screen over seven seasons, from nervous probationer to seasoned officer, and the friendship between the two partners was the real draw.

“The charm of ‘Adam-12’ was its simplicity,” McCord told Boomer Magazine in 2022. “Just two cops in a black-and-white patrolling the streets of Los Angeles.” He remembered meeting Milner on the first day, when his new partner was yawning because he couldn’t sleep the night before a new show. “From that moment on our relationship was cemented,” he said.

After the show he served about 11 years on the Screen Actors Guild’s national board, including a term as its first national vice president. He played Captain Troy on Galactica 1980 and went on to Airplane II: The Sequel, Predator 2, seaQuest DSV and Farscape, where he played the astronaut father of the hero. He and Milner even put the old uniforms back on for cameos in The New Adam-12 in 1990, with Malloy a captain and Reed a lieutenant. More recently he lent his voice to the 2023 video game Starfield, and in April 2025 he drew a sold-out crowd to an afternoon with fans at the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

The uniform left a mark on real cops, too. “To this day I get police officers telling me they became cops because of ‘Adam-12,'” he said. Fans who want more from that era can catch up with the paramedics of Station 51 in our look at the ‘Emergency!’ cast members still alive today.