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Robert Urich (December 19, 1946 – April 16, 2002) was an American actor. He played the starring roles in the television series Vega$ (1978–1981) and Spenser: For Hire (1985–1988). He also appeared in other television series over the years including: Kung Fu (1972), S.W.A.T. (1975), Soap (1977), and The Lazarus Man (1996), as well as in several feature films including Turk 182!, The Ice Pirates, and Magnum Force. Urich died in 2002 in Thousand Oaks, California. The actor announced in 1996 that he was suffering from synovial cell sarcoma, a rare cancer that attacks the body's joints,... MORE

Robert Urich (December 19, 1946 – April 16, 2002) was an American actor. He played the starring roles in the television series Vega$ (1978–1981) and Spenser: For Hire (1985–1988). He also appeared in other television series over the years including: Kung Fu (1972), S.W.A.T. (1975), Soap (1977), and The Lazarus Man (1996), as well as in several feature films including Turk 182!, The Ice Pirates, and Magnum Force. Urich died in 2002 in Thousand Oaks, California. The actor announced in 1996 that he was suffering from synovial cell sarcoma, a rare cancer that attacks the body's joints, for which he underwent several treatments during the last years of his life. Urich was of Rusyn and Slovak extraction and raised Byzantine Catholic and Roman Catholic in the small town of Toronto, Ohio, where he is honored with the Robert Urich Interchange leading to State Route 7. Due to the similarity in names with Toronto, Ontario, many sources list him incorrectly as being a Canadian. His second wife, actress Heather Menzies, actually is a Canadian from the latter city. Urich attended Florida State University on a football scholarship. In 1968, he earned a bachelor's degree in Radio and Television LESS