The Oregonian, Monday, August 5, 1985
Kevin Hagen's face looks familiar, but it's difficult to pin down just where it's been seen.
That's because Hagen has been a great number of people, from the benevolent Dr. Baker in "Little House on the Prairie" to the diabolic Inspector Kobrick on "Land of the Giants." Those are just two examples from a list that includes guest appearances on more than 200 television shows ranging from "The Twilight Zone" to "Fantasy Island."
Hagen, who graduated from Jefferson High School in '1945, was in Portland over the weekend to attend his class reunion. He lives in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
He has been working on the stage and in television since 1955.
"My career is something I can look back on with some pride," said Hagen, who worked throughout the "golden age" of television. "I'm very glad my objectives became clear at that time in television history."
Clear objectives were not always available to Hagen. Born in Chicago, he and his family moved to Oregon in time for him to attend Jefferson, an experience that he said "turned my life around in a very positive way."
He pursued careers in the military and law and moved to California before settling on acting.
He was wondering what to do with his life when he found an advertisement for an open reading for a play.
Hagen did that reading and many others. He acted in many community plays in the Los Angeles area before he got what he described as his "pivotal role" in the play "Desire Under the Elms" by Eugene O'Neill.
Hagen played an active 70-year-old named Ephraim Cabot in that play, a role he called a tremendous challenge for a 28-year-old man. The reviews were good and Hagen got an agent.
From there, he went on to a relatively new medium called television, where he received a part in one of the early "Dragnet" episodes. He described that time as very special in Hollywood.
"It wasn't as commercial a time as it is now and you got excellent writ- ing," he said. "Now, most of it is just trash."
Hagen is perhaps best known for his work in the genre he loves the most, the Western romance. He most often played the bad guy, or the "heavy."
"It was fun," he said. "You could be as mean as you wanted to be. There's a heavy in all of us."
He can still be seen on repeats of series like "Gunsmoke," "Big Valley" and "Have Gun, Will Travel." Those series are the stuff of legends in today's Hollywood, but, though Hagen remembers them fondly, there is one thing he said he would change if he could.
"If I had any advice for young actors, it would be don't do your own stunts," he said. "I wanted to prove I was macho. That's what stunt men are for. I've paid for it because I can't run on my knee now."
Hagen's most recent role was on the "Little House on the Prairie" series, where he played Doc Baker from 1974 until the final episode in 1983. That character is the basis for the main character in a pilot script Hagen has written about a country doctor who is forced to move to the turn-of-the-century Boston slums to make his living, However, he said Hollywood doesn't seem to be interested in the show at this time.
"It's very difficult to get a producers to look at a script for a Western any more," he said. "They're too expensive to produce."
Hagen's other current project is working on his singing voice. He is taking daily lessons from a voice coach and said he hoped to work in a musical in the future. Of course, Hagen's agent is still looking for roles for the actor in a new television series. However, Hagen said modern Hollywood isn't an easy market to find work in.
"There's no characterization for character actors in the new shows," he said. "You have your series leads and they're not terribly interesting. Now, a free-lance actor can be doing a show a month, and that's not enough to make a living."