David Ketchum, Who Played the Cooped-Up Agent 13 on ‘Get Smart,’ Dies at 97

Television|David Ketchum, Who Played the Cooped-Up Agent 13 on ‘Get Smart,’ Dies at 97

David Ketchum, a character actor and prolific television writer known for squeezing himself into vending machines, mailboxes and trash bins as part of his missions as a luckless secret agent on the 1960s sitcom “Get Smart,” died on Aug. 10 at a hospice in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 97.

His daughter Nicole Madden, who confirmed his death, said the cause was heart failure.

On “Get Smart,” Mr. Ketchum played Agent 13, who was frequently forced into tight spaces on his assignments for Control, a fictional intelligence agency tasked with foiling the plans of Kaos, an evil cabal bent on world domination.

The show, which ran on NBC from 1965 to 1969 and on CBS from 1969 to 1970, was a playful spoof of the spy thriller genre and an immediate success with viewers.

David Ketchum was born on Feb. 4, 1928, in Quincy, Ill., to Cecil Ketchum, a salesman for the National Cash Register Company, and Flora Ketchum. He was born in an elevator, presaging the perpetually cramped lifestyle of Agent 13.

He majored in physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, with plans to become an engineer, but quickly became interested in acting.

While still in school, he joined the United Service Organizations circuit and traveled the world entertaining soldiers, he told The Times of San Mateo, Calif., in 1965.