NICO MINARDOS - Veteran Character Actor in Films and Television

(fr. The Twilight Zone Museum)

Character actor Nico Minardos died in Los Angeles on August 27, 2011. He was 81.  Minardos was born in Athens, Greece, on February 15, 1930. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and graduated from the University of California in Los Angeles. He began his acting career in the early 1950s, and was a contract player at 20th Century Fox. He appeared in numerous films during his career, including "Monkey Business" (1952), "The Ten Commandments" (1956), "Ghost Diver" (1957), "Day of the Evil Gun" (1968), "Cannon For Cordoba" (1970), and "Assault On Agathon" (1977) which he also produced. He appeared frequently on television from the mid-1950 through the mid-1980s, with roles in episodes of "Soldiers of Fortune", "Broken Arrow", "Have Gun-Will Travel", "Whirlybirds", "Maverick", "Five Fingers", "Adventures in Paradise", "Sugarfoot", "Route 66", "The Case of the Dangerous Robin", "The Rebel", "Hawaiian Eye", "Twilight Zone" as the Doctor in the 1962 episode "The Gift", "77 Sunset Strip", "Naked City", "The Rogues", "Perry Mason", "Burke’s Law", "Ben Casey", "Daktari", "The Flying Nun", "It Takes a Thief", "The Name of the Game", "Mod Squad", "The Immortal", "Mission: Impossible", "Ironside", "Primus", "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries", "The Greatest American Hero", "The A-Team", and "Simon & Simon". Minardos survived a canoe accident in September of 1966 while filming the television movie "High Jugle". He and actor Eric Fleming (the star of tv's "Rawhide") were thrown into the Huallaga River in Peru when their canoe capsized. He was able to swim to shore but Fleming drowned in the mishap. Minardos was also seen in the the tele-films "The Challengers" (1970) and "River of Mystery" (1971). He largely retired in the 1980s, but was the subject of Owen Prell’s 2010 documentary film "Finding Nico".