Peter Graves died from a heart attack yesterday at his home in California. The actor’s many credits included Mission: Impossible, the Airplane movies and 7th Heaven.

Graves, who was born Peter Aurness, was brought up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After serving in the US Army Air Force for two years he turned his hand to acting, starring in over 70 movies and TV shows.

The actor was best known for playing Jim Phelps, the leader of an elite Impossible Missions Force in the US spy series Mission: Impossible. The performance won him a Golden Globe in 1971.

Graves’s genre credits included the 1950s SF movies Killers From Space, It Conquered the World and Beginning of the End, and 1979’s clone-themed chiller Parts: The Clonus Horror. Graves also proved himself an adept comedic actor, appearing as Captain Clarence Oveur in both Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel.

Graves died just four days before his 84th birthday.

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