
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993                   TAG: 9306120214
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

`CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT' DIES AT HIS OWN HAND

Richard Webb, known to millions of early television viewers in the 1950s as "Captain Midnight," pilot of the Silver Dart and leader of the Secret Squadron waging "the struggle against evil men everywhere," has died. He was 77.

Webb, who had suffered a long, debilitating respiratory illness, shot himself Thursday night at his Los Angeles home, his wife, Florence, announced Friday. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said Webb left a note citing his failing health as reason for his suicide.

An estimated 6 million children and 10 million adults listened faithfully to the adventures of Captain Midnight and his sidekick, Ichabod Mudd, fighting evil with an arsenal of scientific gadgetry and derring-do. The program, which grew out of an earlier radio version, ran on CBS from September 1954 to May 1956.

Webb, who appeared in more than 60 films and 260 television programs during his career, also starred as Deputy Chief Don Jagger on the CBS series "Border Patrol," which ran from 1958 to 1960.

Sometimes the line between scripts and reality blurred for the Bloomington, Ill., native who started out to become a Methodist minister.

In 1959, two insurance salesmen threatented to sue him after the television spycatcher made a "citizen's arrest" of the two during an airplane flight from New Orleans to Miami, claiming they were Russian spies. Police said Webb had been drinking at the time.

At the time of his death, his wife said Webb had been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 33 years.

As a youth, Webb studied for the ministry at John E. Brown College in Siloam Springs, Ark. But he violated school rules by attending a movie.

He worked on a farm in Illinois, modeled for shirt collar advertisements in New York, cut logs in Bishop, Calif., and served four years in the U.S. Army before winding up in Hollywood.

Columnist Hedda Hopper greeted the husky, blond, 6 feet 2, 190-pound Webb as "a new young Gable." His early films included "I Wanted Wings," "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes," "A Connecticut Yankee," "Sands of Iwo Jima" and "The Nebraskan."

- Los Angeles Times

by CNB