The secret agent parody “Get Smart” was one of the fan-favorite comedy shows of the late 1960s. Apart from the talents of star Don Adams as the hapless Maxwell “Agent 86” Smart, the show benefits from the fact that its creators are comedy legend Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, a writer and director who went on to land two Academy Award nominations for “The Graduate” and “Heaven Can Wait.”

“Get Smart” originally ran from 1965 to 1970, so several of the show’s actors are now dead — including Adams, who passed away at the age of 82 in 2005. However, there are still several members of the central “Get Smart” cast alive today. Let’s take a closer look at them. 

Arguably the most important character on “Get Smart” apart from Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart himself, Barbara Feldon’s eternally unnamed Agent 99 is one of CONTROL’s finest operatives. She plays the dual role of Smart’s foil and romantic interest. However, Feldon herself has noted that unlike their characters, the two actors took a surprisingly long time to bond.  

“Though Max and 99 had instant chemistry, Don and I didn’t,” she said in a 2023 interview with Remind. “We were friendly and respectful to each other, but in five years we rarely had a conversation, and when the show was canceled we never got in touch. Nineteen years later, we did a reunion movie and it was as if seeds of affection had been planted years earlier and they suddenly blossomed into a sweet friendship that lasted until the end of his life.”

Feldon returned to the role for both the aforementioned 1989 TV movie “Get Smart, Again!” and the short-lived 1995 revival series. Along with the Get Smart franchise, she has appeared in dozens of other movies and TV shows, including lead roles in the 1967 Dick Van Dyke comedy “Fitzwilly” and director Michael Ritchie’s 1975 satire “Smile.” While she hasn’t acted since 2006, she’s had another creative outlet in writing. She has authored two books: “Living Alone & Loving It: A Guide to Relishing the Solo Life” and an aptly titled autobiography, “Getting Smarter: A Memoir.”

“Playing Siegfried on ‘Get Smart’ and working with Lee J. Cobb in the CBS special of ‘Death of a Salesman’,” Bernie Kopell has defined as his career highlights for the New York Theatre Guide. Finding out that Kopell ranks “Get Smart” so highly speaks volumes, especially since the show is far from the most instrumental Bernie Kopell television experience. After all, the actor is famously part of the main cast of “The Love Boat,” and his 10-season run as Dr. Adam Bricker on the ABC comedy-drama is arguably his best-known work. 

Then again, it’s understandable that the actor enjoyed his “Get Smart” tenure — after all, his character, high-ranking KAOS member Siegfried, is a fun villain and effectively the show’s most prominent antagonist. It also didn’t hurt that he loved working with Don Adams. “My experience with him was like a little bit of heaven,” Kopell praised Adams in an interview with Classic Television Showbiz. “He was responsive to me. He liked that I helped set him up. We played off each other.”

With this context, it’s easy to understand why Kopell readily returned for the same “Get Smart” revivals Barbara Feldon did. Apart from the agent show and “The Love Boat,” he’s also a familiar face from numerous other shows across the decades, thanks to his array of roles that include guest star appearances on many popular series, including “Arrested Development” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

One of CONTROL’s most talented scientists and a poison specialist, the glamorous Dr. Steele appears on three episodes of “Get Smart.” Ellen Weston plays the character, and like many other actors on the show, she accumulated quite an impressive acting résumé before her final on-screen role in 1981. A specialist of guest star characters and comparatively small recurring roles, she appeared on shows ranging from “Bonanza” and “Mannix” to “Wonder Woman” and “Logan’s Run” in a one-episode capacity, and had numerous roles in various TV movies in the 1970s. Her final acting part was actually her longest-running one. From 1979 to 1981, she was one of the many actors on “The Young and the Restless,” appearing as Suzanne Thurston in a total of seven episodes. 

Weston didn’t exactly disappear from the industry, though. Instead, she simply transitioned from acting to writing. She started working in this capacity when she wrote two episodes of the soap opera “Capitol” in 1986. After this, she’s penned numerous TV movies, and has worked as a co-head writer for the CBS soap opera “Guiding Light” in 2003 and 2004. Apart from writing, she’s also co-produced half a dozen TV films, including 1999’s “And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story.” 

David Ketchum’s Agent 13 is easy to remember for his ability to camouflage in just about any environment. While he doesn’t really like his hiding-themed missions, he has a real knack for meeting Maxwell Smart in increasingly absurd disguises that range from dumpsters to safety lockers. Though the visual of Ketchum’s character turning up in strange hiding spots is amazing, it can be easy to forget that Agent 13 is actually just one of the several “agent hiding in a confined space” character archetypes on “Get Smart.” However, Ketchum’s 13 is arguably the most prominent example of this running gag thanks to the actor’s many appearances on the original show, as well as in the 1989 movie “Get Smart, Again!” and the 1995 “Get Smart” show. 

Between the early 1960s and 1999, Ketchum appeared in well over 50 different movies and TV shows, often as a one-episode guest star. He’s also a prolific TV writer who has contributed scripts and stories to shows that include “M*A*S*H,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Wonder Woman,” “The Love Boat,” “Full House,” and, of course, “Get Smart.” Perhaps most notably, he wrote a total of 10 different episodes of one of the funniest sitcoms in TV history, “Happy Days.” He also played various guest star roles on five episodes of the ABC classic, and has acted as an executive consultant for both “Happy Days” and its spinoff “Laverne & Shirley.”