Don Adams dies

Sep 26, 2005 by Ian Evans

Don Adams, who played the inept secret agent Maxwell Smart on Get Smart, has died of a lung infection at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Sunday. He was 82, though some biographical sources list him as younger.

The spy spoof Get Smart, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, featured Adams as a spy in the U.S. agency Control. Along with Barbara Feldon’s Agent 99 and Edward Platt’s Chief, Maxwell Smart bumbled his way through confrontations with the enemy agency KAOS.

Besides the various gadgets he used, Smart was also known for the catchphrase “Would you believe?”, which he’d use as his outlandish claims kept getting scaled back.

Younger TV viewers may know Adams’ distinctive comic voice from the animated series Inspector Gadget.