Robert Culp (August 16, 1930 - March 24, 2010) was an American actor best known for his work on television. His most memorable role was perhaps I Spy a series which ran from 1965 to 1968; Culp played Kelly Robinson and Bill Cosby played Alexander "Scotty" Scott, a pair of undercover secret agents posing as international tennis bums. From 1981 to 1983, he starred in the TV series The Greatest American Hero as FBI agent Bill Maxwell. He found fame again later in his career playing Warren Whelan, the father of Debra Barone and father-in-law to Ray Barone on the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
Culp was one of the most recurring guest stars on Columbo, appearing in a total of four episodes. He made his series debut as hard-nosed Private Investigator Carl Brimmer in Death Lends a Hand, then returned in The Most Crucial Game as Paul Hanlon. In Double Exposure he played Dr. Bart Keppel; he was the first actor to play a Columbo killer more than once and the first to do three times. In 1990, 17 years after his previous appearance, Culp guest-starred in one last Columbo episode, playing Jordan Rowe in Columbo Goes to College; Rowe is the father to Justin Rowe, one half of the episode's murderous duo (alongside Cooper Redman). This was the only Culp episode in which he did not play the murderer.
Culp was tied for years with Jack Cassidy as the only actor to have played a killer on Columbo three times until Patrick McGoohan also achieved this feat in 1990, later breaking this record by playing the killer a fourth time in 1998. He died in Los Angeles in 2010, having suffered a heart attack while walking in Runyon Canyon. He was 79 years old.