Martin E. Brooks dies: Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman actor dead at 90

Martin E. Brooks, the actor known for playing Dr. Rudy Wells on TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, died Monday of natural causes. He was 90.

Hollywood producer Jon Landau confirmed the news to EW and said Brooks was the “soul mate” of his mother, Edie Landau, for the past 20 years. Brooks and Edie Landau were childhood friends in Pennsylvania and reconnected decades later, after her husband, Ely Landau, died in 1993.

Brooks was the third and most frequent actor to portray Wells, the doctor and scientist who outfits the titular characters Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) with cybernetic implants on the two 1970s series. Brooks also returned for three TV movies.

His other television credits included Dallas, Knots Landing, McMillan & Wife, Hunter, General Hospital, and Cagney & Lacey.

Born in the Bronx borough of New York City, Martin moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., with his family at age 10 and served as a paratrooper in the South Pacific during World War II. He attended Penn State University after the war, and studied and worked in theater in New York before making his way to Hollywood.

Landau said of Brooks, “It’s not so much how Marty approached his work so much as how he approached life, which was full of vim and vigor. He had the most positive attitude.”