By Kenneth Jones
15 May 2003

Robert Stack, the actor whose sonorous voice and no-nonsense quality lent credibility to his work as Eliot Ness in TV's "The Untouchables" and the true-crime series "Unsolved Mysteries," died May 14, though his voice will live on in Broadway's upcoming staging of Little Shop of Horrors.

Mr. Stack died at home in Los Angeles at the age of 84, according to the Associated Press. His Broadway debut will be posthumous this summer: His recorded voice helps tell the B-movie-style musical fable, Little Shop of Horrors, about a man-eating plant and the nitwits who nurture it. Opening at the Virginia Theatre is set for Aug. 14. The Alan Menken-Howard Ashman show is currently playing a developmental run in Florida.

The cause of death was heart failure.

On TV, Mr. Stack found success playing the dead-serious Prohibition-era agent Ness in "The Untouchables." He won an Emmy for his work.

According to AP, Mr. Stack was "born into a performing arts family in Los Angeles. His great-great-grandfather opened one of the city's first theatres, and his grandparents, uncle and mother were opera singers."

A screen test when he was 20 started a long Hollywood career. He was Oscar-nominated in 1957 for appearing in "Written on the Wind." His stiff image was exploited in the film comedies "Airplane!" and "1941."