The Most Iconic TV Characters of the ’60s

Jonathan Harris was the cowardly, neurotic spy/stowaway who accidentally sends the Robinson family spaceship off course.

Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Patty Duke (“The Miracle Worker”) played dual roles as American teen Patty Lane and her sophisticated British cousin Cathy whose identities are often mixed up and hilarity ensues.

Sgt. Joe Friday was the sardonic, no-nonsense Los Angeles cop portrayed by Jack Webb who just wanted the facts.

Lucille Ball returned to the small screen by getting into misadventures when her schemes went awry.

Ray Walston played a visitor from Mars rescued by a newspaper reporter who tries to keep his visitor’s true identity a secret by calling him Uncle Martin.

Shirley Booth played the strong-willed, live-in maid who keeps the family that employs her in line.

Sebastian Cabot was one of the most recognizable faces on television screens in the 1960, but he was most famous for his role as the valet nurturing the nieces and nephews of his employer in the sit-com “Family Affair.”

A veteran of television westerns and rural-themed series such as “Wagon Train” and “The Real McCoys,” Pat Buttram played recurring character Mr. Haney who was constantly trying to pass along hairbrained ideas to city slickers-turned farm owners Oliver and Lisa Douglas.

Mr. Spock was the half Vulcan/half human science officer aboard the USS Enterprise played with understated gravitas by Leonard Nimoy.

Don Knotts starred as the easily rattled, loopy deputy in the sleepy North Carolina town of Mayberry. Knotts first established the nervous-man character on the man-on-the-street segments on “The Steve Allen Plymouth Show.” in the 1950s.

Film veteran Agnes Moorehead (“Citizen Kane,” “The Magnificent Ambersons”) created the memorable character Endora, the condescending witch on “Bewitched” who is constantly putting down her mortal son-in-law.

John Banner, a Jewish actor from Austria whose family perished in the Holocaust, was cast as the utterly confused but endearing German guard at a prison of war camp in “Hogan’s Heroes.”

Before playing Donald Mallard in the NCIS television series, David McCallum first gained TV fame as Soviet spy and teen heartthrob Illya Kuryakin on the Cold War-era spy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”

Jim Backus gained everlasting TV fame as the WASP-ish, entitled banker stranded on a deserted island with six other castaways on “Gilligan’s Island.”

Irene Ryan appeared in many movies in the 1930s and 1940s and television series in the 1950s and 1960s, but her character as the cantankerous Granny in the newly rich “Beverly Hillbillies” made her a star.

Jackie Coogan first achieved stardom as a child actor opposite Charlie Chaplin in the silent film “The Kid” in 1921. His performance as the manic Uncle Fester on the laughably macabre series “The Addams Family” ensured him lasting TV fame.

“Julia” is Julia Baker, an African-American woman nurse and widow (her husband died in Vietnam) trying to raise her son alone. Diahann Carroll played the title role, the first TV series that starred an African-American.

“Gomer Pyle: USMC” is a spinoff of “The Andy Griffith Show,” whose title character’s naivete inadvertently exasperates his drill sergeant (Frank Sutton).

Frank DeKova carved out a strong career as cold-blooded gangsters, killers, gunfighters and Native Americans in motion pictures. It wasn’t until he played the scheming and untrustworthy Native American Chief Wild Eagle in the TV romp “F Troop” that he had a knack for comedy.

The Mel Brooks/Buck Henry-created Cold War-era sit-com featured Don Adams as the dim spy Maxwell Smart who tried to navigate difficult situations by prefacing explanations with the phrase “Would you believe…“