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Peter Graves
Birth name	Peter Aurness
Born	March 18, 1926 (1926-03-18) (age 81) Minneapolis, Minnesota
Occupation	Actor
Spouse(s)	Joan Endress (1950-present)
Awards Emmy Awards Outstanding Informational Series 1997 Biography Golden Globe Awards Best TV Actor - Drama 1971 Mission: Impossible

Peter Graves (born March 18, 1926^[1][2]) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his starring role in the television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973 (and again from 1988 to 1990).

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Personal life 1.2 Career 1.3 Awards 2 Filmography 3 References 4 External links

Graves was born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Ruth (née Duesler), a journalist, and Rolf Cirkler Aurness, who worked in business. Graves is a descendant of German, Norwegian and English immigrants. His brother is actor James Arness (Gunsmoke). Graves attended Southwest High School (Class of 1944) and the University of Minnesota, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.

Graves has been married to Joan Endress since 1950. They have three daughters: Kelly, Claudia and Amanda.

Graves has appeared in more than seventy films, TV series and TV-movies. He is especially well known for the following roles:

• The rancher and single father to child actor Bobby Diamond on the 1950s TV series Fury
• Price, a German spy placed among allied POWs in Stalag 17
• A father on the run from the law in Night of the Hunter
• James (Jim) Phelps, the leader of the elite Impossible Missions Force in the iconic television show, Mission: Impossible
• Captain Clarence Oveur in the comedies Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel
• Colonel John Camden on the WB's 7th Heaven

From 1960–61, Graves started as (lead role) Christopher Cobb in 34 episodes of the TV series Whiplash as an American who arrived in Australia in the 1850s and set up the country's first stagecoach line. Cobb mainly used a bullwhip rather than a gun to fight the many cowboy crooks he came up against. The series also starred Anthony Wickert as Dan. He had previously starred as Jim Newton in a kids series called Fury about a horse. He also starred in Court Martial five years later as well as TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Route 66.

In 1967, Graves was recruited by Desilu Studios to replace Steven Hill as the lead actor on Mission: Impossible. Graves played Jim Phelps, the sometimes gruff leader of the Impossible Missions Force or IMF, for the remaining six seasons of the series.

After the series ended in 1973 Graves traveled to Australia to play a cameo-type support role in feature film Sidecar Racers which was released in 1975. Graves also made a guest appearance in teen soap opera Class of '74 in mid-1974, playing himself.

In 1988, a Hollywood writers' strike resulted in a new Mission: Impossible series being commissioned. Graves was the only original cast member to return as a regular (although others made guest appearances). The series was filmed in Australia and Graves made his third journey to that country for ongoing acting work. The new version of Mission: Impossible lasted for two seasons, ending in 1990.

Bookending his work on Mission: Impossible, Graves starred in two pilot films called Call to Danger, which were an attempt to create a Mission: Impossible-style series in which Graves played a government agent who recruited civilians with special talents for secret missions.^[3] The 1960s version of the pilot, according to Patrick White in The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, is credited with winning Graves the role of Phelps; after Mission: Impossible ended in 1973, Graves filmed a second version of the pilot, but it did not sell as a series. The concept was later used in the 1980s series Masquerade.

Between series, Graves had laser treatment on his face to make himself look young by removing wrinkles which unfortunately gave his face an unnaturally smooth look and as other stars found out later, made it difficult for him to show emotion. During the 1990s, he hosted the documentary series Biography on A&E.

He also acted in a number of films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which subsequently featured running jokes about Graves' Biography work and presumed sibling rivalry with Arness. The films that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 include SST Death Flight, It Conquered The World, Attack of the Eye Creatures, Beginning of the End, and Parts: The Clonus Horror.

Graves himself parodied his Biography work in the film Men in Black II, hosting an exposé television show.

In the 1996 film update of Mission: Impossible, the character of Phelps was reimagined as a traitor who murdered three fellow IMF agents. Although Graves was reportedly offered the role, the character was played in the movie by Jon Voight.

He won a Golden Globe award in 1971 for his role as Jim Phelps in the series. He also received nominations for Emmy awards and Golden Globe awards in other seasons.

• Winning Your Wings (1942) (short subject)
• Up Front (1951)
• Fort Defiance (1951)
• The Congregation (1952)
• Red Planet Mars (1952)
• Stalag 17 (1953)
• War Paint (1953)
• East of Sumatra (1953)
• Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953)
• Killers from Space (1954)
• The Yellow Tomahawk (1954)
• The Raid (1954)
• Black Tuesday (1954)
• Fort Yuma (1955)
• The Long Gray Line (1955)
• Robbers' Roost (1955)
• Wichita (1955)
• The Naked Street (1955)
• The Night of the Hunter (1955)
• The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
• It Conquered the World (1956)
• Hold Back the Night (1956)
• Canyon River (1956)
• Beginning of the End (1957)
• Bayou (1957)
• Death in Small Doses (1957)
• Wolf Larsen (1958)
• A Stranger in My Arms (1959)
• A Rage to Live (1965)
• Texas Across the River (1966)
• The Ballad of Josie (1967)
• Mission: Impossible vs. the Mob (1968) (compilation of episodes released to European theaters)
• Sergeant Ryker (1968)
• The Five Man Army (1969)
• Scream of The Wolf (1974)
• Sidecar Racers (1975)
• The Mysterious Monsters (1976) (documentary) (narrator)
• High Seas Hijack (1978) (in English version)
• The Clonus Horror (1979)
• Survival Run (1980)
• Airplane! (1980)
• The Guns and the Fury (1981)
• Savannah Smiles (1982)
• Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
• The Winds of War (1983)
• Number One with a Bullet (1987)
• Addams Family Values (1993)
• House on Haunted Hill (1999)
• Men in Black II (2002)

• Peter Graves at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography and filmography