• Faith: Christian
• Career: Actor
• Birthday:  February 10, 1930

Robert John Wagner Jr., born on February 10, 1930, is an American actor whose long film and television career began in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively. He is primarily known as a television star, with his most famous role being that of Jonathan Hart in the adventure series/crime drama Hart to Hart with Stephanie Powers. He made his uncredited film debut in The Happy Years (1950) and the following year had supporting roles in a war movie, Halls of Montezuma, and a comedy, Let's Make It Legal, with Claudette Colbert.

Wagner gained greater attention in the 1952 film With a Song in My Heart, in which he shone in brief scenes as a shell-shocked soldier. His movie career continued to grow in the 1950s, as he portrayed the romantic male lead in Stars and Stripes Forever in 1952, and took on his first starring role in 1953's Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. The latter film was not successful, but Wagner soon afterward landed a leading role in Prince Valiant (1954).

The actor continued to appear in war movies, westerns and other dramas, including the 1956 film A Kiss Before Dying. That movie brought him recognition for playing a murderous college student in pursuit of his girlfriend's inheritance. He also appeared in a prisoner-of-war drama entitled Colditz between 1972 and 1974 for BBC/Universal and acted alongside Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway in Towering Inferno.

Yet, Wagner's road to success and fame was not smooth. He experienced setbacks in the early 1960s and moved to Europe for several years in search of movie roles. But it was television that made Wagner's biggest mark. His first series, It Takes a Thief, was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock movie To Catch a Thief. The show debuted in 1968 after an agent convinced Wagner that television was his medium. The agent was right.

In It Takes a Thief, Wagner played a sophisticated cat burglar and convicted thief who used his skills in jobs for the U.S. government. In exchange for his help, the government offered Wagner his freedom from prison. The actor's co-star in the show was dancer and actor Fred Astaire, who played his father. Astaire's character was a retired thief who frequently came out of retirement to help his son. Wagner's work on the show earned him an Emmy nomination for Best TV Actor.

Wagner followed the success of It Takes a Thief with Switch, a television series co-starring Eddie Albert. Albert played a retired cop who had once arrested Wagner's character, a con man who was trying to reform. The two men opened a detective agency and frequently used confidence tricks to ensnare criminals.

But Wagner's best-known role was still to come. His third series was Hart to Hart, in which he played self-made millionaire Jonathan Hart, a sophisticated businessman who solved crimes with his wife, played by Stephanie Powers. The action-adventure series ran from 1979 to 1984, and after its cancellation, eight Hart to Hart made-for-television movies were aired from 1993 to 1996.

Robert Wagner was married to actress Natalie Wood twice and has been married to actress Jill St. John since 1990. The Wagner-Wood marriages were tumultuous. The couple first married in 1957 and separated in 1960-1961. They divorced in 1962 and both remarried, only to reconcile after those marriages ended in divorce. Their second wedding took place in 1972, and they had a daughter, Courtney, in 1974.

Wood drowned in November 1981, and Wagner became the guardian of her 11-year-old daughter, Natasha. Wood's death, which occurred near the couple's 55-foot yacht, Splendour, was initially ruled accidental, but in 2012, the chief coroner amended the autopsy report from "accidental drowning" to "drowning and other undetermined factors" after receiving additional evidence.

It has been said that after Wood's sudden death, Wagner relied on his instincts to guide him, which some believe indicates spiritual guidance. The retired actor has commented on the importance of living a full life despite the hardships one experiences. He has also talked about the profound pain he experienced after Wood's death and the role St. John and his children played in helping him recover.

Wagner began dating St. John in 1982, and they married eight years later. Their marriage, which is the fourth for both, has lasted longer than all of the couple's previous marriages combined. Today, Wagner has one grandchild, who was born in 2006, and lives with St. John in Aspen, Colorado.

They have been involved in charitable work during their long marriage, with Wagner having a specific interest in helping deaf children and protecting animals. They also have supported Second Food Harvest, the Silver Lining Foundation for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases, the Barbara Sinatra Center for Abused Children and other unnamed charities.

Is Robert Wagner Religious?

Robert Wagner graduated from Saint Monica Catholic High School in 1949, so he did have a Catholic education.

Robert J. Wagner has often framed his long Hollywood career as both a privilege and a responsibility. In his memoir Pieces of My Heart, he reflects on the breaks that shaped his life and the gratitude he feels for them, emphasizing humility and perseverance rather than entitlement. While he rarely speaks in overtly theological terms, his reflections convey a sense of stewardship—an understanding that success carries an obligation to use one’s opportunities well.

His name is sometimes linked online to the line, “Your talent is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift back to God,” but that wording is widely attributed to motivational author Leo Buscaglia and does not appear in Wagner’s memoir or verified interviews.

Adding to the confusion, a very different Robert Wagner—the U.S. senator who sponsored the Wagner Act—did convert to Catholicism in the 1940s, which has occasionally led to mistaken assumptions about the actor’s faith.

In reality, Wagner has not publicly identified with a specific denomination over the years, and his own reflections focus on gratitude and responsibility rather than formal theology.