Efrem Zimbalist Jr obituary

It would have been difficult to predict, when Efrem Zimbalist Jr was growing up in New York, the son of the concert violinist Efrem Zimbalist and the opera singer Alma Gluck, surrounded by leading lights in the arts world, that his main claim to fame later in life would be playing a private investigator in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and a police inspector in The FBI.

Zimbalist, who has died aged 95, had been acting professionally since 1945, and had already appeared in eight feature films, without having made much impact, when he was cast as the private eye Stu Bailey in 77 Sunset Strip in 1958. It ran for six years, and Zimbalist became a household name.