All Movies List
American Pop

as Crisco (voice)

1981
Cat in the Cage

as Rachid Khan

1978
Jive Turkey

as Big Tony (as Frank deKova)

1974
Heavy Traffic

as Angelo "Angie" Corleone (voice)

1973
The Slams

as Capiello

1973
The Mechanic

as The Man

1972
The Wild Country

as Two Dog

1970
F Troop

as Chief Wild Eagle

1965
Follow That Dream

as Jack (as Frank de Kova)

1962
Atlantis: The Lost Continent

as Sonoy the Astrologer

1961
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond

as Syndicate Chairman

1960
The Jayhawkers!

as Evans

1959
Day of the Outlaw

as Denver, Bruhn's Gang

1959
Machine-Gun Kelly

as Harry

1958
Teenage Cave Man

as The Black-Bearded One

1958
Apache Territory

as Lugo (as Frank deKova)

1958
Run of the Arrow

as Red Cloud (as Frank De Kova)

1957
Appointment with a Shadow

as Dutch Hayden

1957
Ride Out for Revenge

as Chief Yellow Wolf

1957
The Lone Ranger

as Chief Red Hawk

1956
The White Squaw

as Yellow Elk

1956
Santiago

as Jingo

1956
Shack Out on 101

as Prof. Claude Dillon

1955
Passion

as Martinez (as Frank de Kova)

1954
Split Second

as Dummy

1953
Arrowhead

as Chief Chattez

1953
The Desert Song

as Mindar

1953
Fighter Attack

as Benedetto

1953
Frank De Kova Frank De Kova

Birthday

1910-03-17

Place of Birth

New York - USA

Biography

Frank DeKova parlayed a sinister scowl, piercing eyes and an all-around menacing attitude into a long career of playing cold-blooded trigger-men, rampaging Indian chiefs, brutal Mexican army officers and the like. So it would probably come as a shock to those who know his work to discover that, before he became an actor, he was--of all things--a schoolteacher. Born in New York in 1910, DeKova gave up teaching for the stage, and played in many Shakespearean productions before getting work on Broadway. One of his first starring roles was in the classic detective play "Detective Story", which got him noticed and brought to Hollywood. He debuted in Viva Zapata! (1952) as the devious Mexican colonel who sets up Zapata's assassination. For the next several years he played an assortment of gangsters, killers, gunfighters and Indians--with time out to play a prehistoric patriarch in Roger Corman's campy Teenage Cave Man (1958)--and did much television work, including a standout job as a Mafia hit-man assigned to kill Elliot Ness in Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse: The Untouchables: Part 1 (1959). The role for which he will be most remembered, however, is probably the one that was his most atypical: the scheming, somewhat untrustworthy but very funny Hekawi Chief Wild Eagle, the partner to Forrest Tucker's Sgt. O'Rourke in O'Rourke's various schemes to make money, in the western comedy series F Troop (1965). He showed a previously unknown talent for comedy and managed to steal most of the scenes he was in from such veterans as Tucker and Larry Storch. He died in his sleep in 1981.
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