`Captain Midnight' Commits Suicide

LOS ANGELES - Richard Webb, known to millions of early television viewers in the 1950s as "Captain Midnight," pilot of the Silver Dart and leader of the Secret Squadron waging "the struggle against evil men everywhere," has died. He was 77.

Mr. Webb, who had suffered a long, debilitating respiratory illness, shot himself Thursday night at his Los Angeles home, his wife, Florence, announced yesterday. The Los Angeles County coroner's office said Webb left a note citing his failing health as reason for his suicide.

An estimated 6 million children and 10 million adults listened faithfully to the adventures of Captain Midnight and his sidekick, Ichabod Mudd, fighting evil with an arsenal of scientific gadgetry and derring-do. The program, which grew out of an earlier radio version, ran on CBS from September 1954 to May 1956.

To become a member of the Secret Squadron, fans had only to mail in a coupon from a jar of Ovaltine, the drink that sponsored the show.

In 1986, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., recognized Captain Midnight with a display of items from the program. Mr. Webb told The Los Angeles Times he donated his character's scarf, trousers, boots, belt and his very own decoder pin.

The series was syndicated under the title "Jet Jackson, Flying Commando" until 1958.

Mr. Webb, who appeared in more than 60 films and 260 television programs during his career, also starred as Deputy Chief Don Jagger on the CBS series "Border Patrol," which ran from 1958 to 1960.

Sometimes the line between scripts and reality blurred for the Bloomington, Ill., native who started out to become a Methodist minister.

In 1959, two insurance salesmen threatened to sue him after the television spy-catcher made a "citizen's arrest" of the two during an airplane flight from New Orleans to Miami, claiming they were Russian spies. Police said Mr. Webb had been drinking at the time.

A year later, police were summoned to Mr. Webb's home when neighbors said he was firing a revolver. He was charged with disturbing the peace after police confiscated four rifles, three shotguns, 26 pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Mr. Webb was fined $150, placed on two years probation and ordered to abstain from using alcohol.

At the time of his death, his wife said Mr. Webb had been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 33 years.

As a youth, Mr. Webb studied for the ministry at John E. Brown College in Siloam Springs, Ark. But he violated school rules by attending a movie.

He worked on a farm in Illinois, modeled for shirt-collar advertisements in New York, cut logs in Bishop, Calif., and served four years in the U.S. Army before winding up in Hollywood.