The first person I saw milling about when I walked on the set of THE WILD WILD WEST that October 3rd morning in 1966, was Alex Kaeck, Robert Conrad's stand-in. Alex was first to bid me a good morning. I met Alex through Mickey Golden when I worked the show as an extra. Alex followed his greeting by welcoming me to the show. His "welcome to the show" was an unusual greeting for a newcomer showing up to work one day as an extra. He followed this unusual greeting with an even more unexpected statement.

"Well, how does it feel to be standing-in for Bob?" he asked, smiling broadly.

Since I was under the impression that I was reporting to the set for a days work as an extra, I had no idea what Alex was talking about and the statement was beyond my immediate comprehension. The look I gave him must have seemed as ridiculous to him as the question sounded to me; after all, Alex was Bob's stand-in.

Alex Kaeck was Hawaiian, both in mind and body. He was a friendly, well-mannered, dark-complexioned middle-aged man who looked younger than his years. He was also a very good pianist who moonlighted at the nearby Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. Conrad spent many evenings there, entertaining friends while listening to Alex play the piano.

The people who worked THE WILD WILD WEST television series were not a serious-minded, self-serving group of people. They were a bunch of fun-loving people who enjoyed their work and the people they worked with. Show business is an unusual business and a person working as an extra one week could well be your producer on a picture the following week; the reverse also being a possibility. Few people if any, who worked on THE WILD WILD WEST wore a suit or tie. Much to my surprise, most were very down-to-earth people who treated everybody the same and nobody seemed to push their weight around. The old adage that "water seeks its own level" seems to hold true in the world of show business. Those whose attitude didn't fit in the mold of people around him, seemed to work themselves out of the show.

A perfect example of this happened while I was working with Bob on another show. Bob quite often left his script in his dressing room, at home or just simply laid it somewhere and lost it. I learned this shortly after I started working on THE WILD WILD WEST and made a habit of getting two extra scripts; one for me to follow his work schedule and scenes, and an extra one for Bob. Quite often we used all three, but it was far better and less expensive to have an extra script on hand in case Bob lost his and/or mine than to hold things up looking for a spare. I requested extra scripts from the new Assistant Director, and explained the reasons for it, but he didn't like catering to Bob's bad habits and never bothered ordering the extra scripts. Before long, Bob lost both his script and mine so I had to borrow one to loan him. I then went to the Assistant Director and asked him to call the office for another script.

Later that day, I was sitting with Bob passing the time of day when the Assistant Director walked by. I asked if he had remembered to call the office and he apparently thought he'd take advantage of the opportunity to embarrass me in front of Bob.

"Yea," he snapped at me! "You ORDERED me to do it, didn't you?" Emphasizing the word "ordered", his response was quick, mean and sarcastic.

It was the last thing I expected and was caught completely off-guard. I stared at him openmouthed but, if I was at a loss for words, I could have been knocked over with a feather with what followed. In an instant, Bob was out of his chair and in that Assistant's face. Then, with that cold, icy tone he uses when he is really mad, he read the Assistant off:

"I don't know what the hell's going on here but if Cang said he wanted you to do something, he 'asked', he didn't 'order', and if he 'asked' you to do something, it's because it's your job and if you don't like your job, just let me know and we'll see what we can do about getting you replaced."

I have no idea what made Bob explode like he did but he did. I wanted to explain but Bob wouldn't let me.

"You don't have to explain anything to me!"

I never brought the subject up again and was proud of the fact that he trusted me enough to defend me without an explanation of what really had happened. The Assistant Director, apparently suffering from delusions of grandeur, elected to leave after losing several more minor disputes. He just didn't fit the mold of the others on the show.