Kevin Hagen (April 3, 1928, Chicago, Illinois - July 9, 2005) was an American actor.
Born to professional ballroom dancers, Hagen was raised by his mother, grandmother, and aunts. He worked for the US State Department in West Germany (now a part of Germany), and spent a year in law school at UCLA after attending Oregon State University and the University of Southern California before deciding to try acting at the age of 27. He was spotted in a production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms and given a guest role on the classic 1950s series Dragnet. He began to work steadily in television and film.
His first regular role on a series was 1958's popular cult western Yancy Derringer as city administrator of New Orleans, John Colton, circa 1868. As Colton, at the beginning of the episode, he asks Yancy to solve New Orleans present threat, and at the end of the episode arrests Yancy for breaking the law to do it.
Hagen also worked steady as guest roles on countless series (Bat Masterson, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Time Tunnel, Perry Mason, Land of the Giants, Knots Landing, to name a few), often as the bully you love to see 'getting his come-uppance'.
But he considered his big break the role of a Confederate soldier who kills James Stewart's son in the 1965 film Shenandoah.
His most famous role was one of his nicer ones, as kindly Doc Baker on Little House on the Prairie. He played the part from 1974-1983 and in a one-man show, A Playful Dose of Prairie Wisdom.
In 1992, he moved to Grants Pass, Oregon and continued his acting career. In 2004 he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In the last year of his life, Hagen went to the National Enquirer to claim that Little House on the Prairie creator and star Michael Landon had not given the cast their fair share of money on residuals. In a follow up interview, Hagen thanked fans for their support and said some co-stars had contacted him to tell him they also felt they had been cheated out of money.
He was once married to actress Susanne Cramer until her death in 1969.
At his death, Hagen left a widow, Jan (his fourth wife; he met her in 1993), and a son, Kristopher.
Kevin Hagen is the son of professional ballroom dancers, Haakon Olaf Hagen and Marvel Lucile Wadsworth. His father left the family when Kevin was five. He was raised by his mother, two aunts and a grandmother, with some help from his uncle, a physician. The family moved to Portland, Oregon when Kevin was a teenager and he played baseball and football at Jefferson High School. He attended Oregon State University before enlisting in the U.S. Navy after World War II, and served in San Diego. At age 15, he weighed 250 pounds, but lost 60 pounds by the following summer. His son, Kristopher Hagen (age 34 in 2005), is a Special Ed teacher and high school baseball coach in Bakersfield, California. He was a single parent for some 20 years. He has been married four times.
