Actor David Janssen, best remembered as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series, The Fugitive, died February 13, 1980. He was 49.

Janssen was born March 27, 1930 in Naponee, Nebraska. His parents divorced when he was a small child. He and his mother relocated to Hollywood, California where his mother remarried. Janssen took the name of his stepfather, Eugene Janssen.

Janssen’s mother was a former Ziegfeld showgirl. He followed in her footsteps by choosing a show business career. When he was 15, he made his movie debut in It’s a Pleasure (1945).

After high school, he signed with Universal-International Studios, and appeared in two movies in the early 1950’s---Yankee Buccaneer and Bonzo Goes To College.

After serving in the Army during the Korean War, Janssen returned to the screen in To Hell and Back (1955). After making a few movies, he achieved his first major success as the title character in the TV series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, in 1957.

After that series was cancelled, Janssen continued his movie career until the early 1960’s when he was offered the role of Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive in 1963.

The show was an instant hit. Janssen portrayed Dr. Kimble, a man falsely accused of killing his wife. Kimble spent four years running from the dogged police lieutenant Girard, and trying to prove his innocence by finding the one-armed man he saw running from his house the night his wife was killed.

Janssen decided to bow out of the series at the height of its popularity. The final episode in 1967 drew one of the largest audiences in TV history. In the final show, Kimble found the one-armed man and was able to prove his innocence.

Janssen continued to act after The Fugitive but never reached the level of popularity he achieved as Dr. Kimble.

He died of a heart attack on February 13, 1980 in Malibu, California while filming a play about Father Damien, the Leper Priest.

Janssen is buried in Hillside Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.