actor...
 
Robert Urich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: 
navigation, 
search
Robert Urich (
December 19, 
1946 ? 
April 16, 
2002) was an 
Emmy-winning 
actor, best known for playing private investigators on the 
television series Spenser: For Hire (
1985?
1988) and 
Vega$ (
1978?
1981). He also starred in numerous other television series over the years including: 
S.W.A.T. (
1975), 
Soap (
1977) and 
The Lazarus Man (1996).
[edit] Early years
He was of 
Rusyn and 
Slovak extraction and raised 
Roman Catholic in the small town of 
Toronto, 
Ohio. Due to the similarity in names with 
Toronto, Ontario, many sources list him incorrectly as being a 
Canadian. His second wife, Heather, actually 
is a Canadian from the latter city.
Urich attended 
Florida State University on a football scholarship. In 1968, he earned a bachelor's degree in Radio and Television Communications. He went on to 
Michigan State University after working in Ohio to earn a 
master's degree in Broadcast Research and Management.
Urich was first married to actress 
Barbara Rucker (
1968?
74)
[1]. He later married actress 
Heather Menzies [2] in 
1975, and they remained married until his death in 
2002. Heather Menzies Urich had played one of the von Trapp children in the film version of 
The Sound of Music with 
Julie Andrews. Urich and Menzies adopted three children. Like her husband, Menzies battled cancer; however she is a cancer survivor.
[edit] Acting career
Between 
1973 and just prior to his death in 
2002, Urich had lead or supporting roles in no less than 17 television series (including several 
documentary programs). He also regularly hosted 
National Geographic TV specials. In 
1992, Urich hosted the 
CBS TV special 
The Bat, the Cat, and the Penguin, which was a behind-the-scenes look of the upcoming motion picture 
Batman Returns. Most of his TV series were short-lived, however several were successes, including 
Vega$ and 
Spenser: For Hire. In the 1990s, Urich reprised the role of Spenser in several 
made-for-TV films. He played a main character, Jake Spoon, in the acclaimed television miniseries 
Lonesome Dove, a notable role for which received many positive reviews.
In 
1996, Urich announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of 
cancer that attacks joints called 
synovial cell sarcoma. The TV series he was working on at the time, 
The Lazarus Man, was cancelled. He ultimately died from this disease at the age of 55, although he continued to appear in film and TV during treatment. His final TV series role was in the short-lived 
sitcom Emeril (starring 
Emeril Lagasse) in 
2001.