Who Is LaVelda Fann? All About Robert Conrad’s Ex-Wife

LaVelda Fann is an American actress and former beauty queen who is best known to many readers as the second wife of television star Robert Conrad. She first came to attention in a national teen pageant in the late 1970s, then built a small screen career of her own in shows linked to adventure and rescue stories.

Searches for lavelda fann often mix together two stories, her own work and her long marriage to Conrad. The two were married in 1983 and divorced in 2010, and they had three daughters together. This article separates what is well documented from what is only reported, because some dates about her early life and marriage are repeated online in conflicting forms.

Quick Facts

Early Life in Alabama

Most biography profiles give LaVelda Fann’s full name as LaVelda Ione Fann and her birth date as August 16, 1960, in Gadsden, Alabama. She grew up in Alabama before entering the pageant world as a teenager. Beyond that, very little reliable information has been published about her parents, her schooling, or her childhood home.

Her parents’ names are not given in the stronger sources checked for this article. Some websites simply list them as Mr. and Mrs. Fann, which is another way of saying that the family kept those details private. Information about siblings is also not publicly confirmed. Rather than fill those gaps with guesses, this article leaves them as not publicly documented.

That limited record is worth stating clearly at the start. Fann became a public figure quite young, through a pageant, and then through marriage to a well known actor. Yet she never gave the kind of long personal interviews that create a detailed public biography. As a result, the early chapters of her life remain thin in print, even though her later screen credits are easier to list.

Miss National Teenager and a Life Changing Meeting

Fann’s first public success came in the pageant world. Several profiles report that she won the Miss National Teenager title in 1978. Other accounts link her to the same pageant in 1977, when she took part as a teenager. The exact year is reported differently across sources, but the core point is consistent: the Miss National Teenager pageant brought her national attention while she was still in her teens.

The pageant also changed her personal life. By most accounts, she met Robert Conrad through the pageant, where Conrad was serving as host or master of ceremonies. Conrad was already a major television star by then, known as James West in The Wild Wild West, which ran from 1965 to 1969, and as Tom Lopaka in Hawaiian Eye before that.

Readers will find some websites that give a wedding date in March 1977 for Fann and Conrad. That date conflicts with Wikipedia’s entry on Robert Conrad, which lists his first marriage to Joan Kenlay as lasting until a divorce in 1977, and his marriage to LaVelda Ione Fann as beginning in 1983. Hello Magazine and other recent family profiles also use 1983 as the start of the second marriage. For that reason, this article uses the Wikipedia date, married in 1983, and treats the 1977 wedding claim as unconfirmed and likely an error copied between sites.

Acting Career on Television and Film

Fann moved from pageants into acting at the end of the 1970s. Her early screen appearance came in A Man Called Sloane in 1979, a short lived secret agent series that starred Robert Conrad. Appearing in a show led by her future husband gave her an entry into television, but her later work shows that she continued acting in her own right through the 1990s.

Her credits, as listed across film and television databases and biography profiles, include the television movie Sworn to Vengeance, the television project Search and Rescue, and the series High Sierra Search and Rescue in the mid 1990s. In High Sierra Search and Rescue, she appeared in a rescue themed show that again starred Conrad as a leader of a mountain rescue team. The setting fit the family’s real life at that time, since the Conrad family lived for a period in Bear Valley, a rural mountain community in California.

She later appeared in the film Dead Above Ground, released in the early 2000s, in a small role listed in some profiles as Mrs. Wilson. Robert Conrad also appeared in that film, as did other familiar television names. It was not a large Hollywood production, and Fann’s part was not a leading one, but it shows that she was still taking screen work more than twenty years after her first credit.

Alongside acting, several profiles report that she has owned FannHaven Productions, LLC, in Los Angeles since 2007. That business detail is reported in multiple biography pages but is not covered in major news outlets, so it is presented here as reported rather than independently confirmed. No detailed list of productions from that company is widely published.

Her acting career was selective rather than constant. She did not chase a separate star image apart from the Conrad name, and for a performer who raised three daughters in a mountain community away from Los Angeles, that makes sense on its own terms.

Marriage to Robert Conrad

Robert Conrad, born Conrad Robert Falk on March 1, 1935, in Chicago, had been famous for years before his second marriage. Before Fann, he was married to Joan Kenlay from 1952 until their divorce in 1977, and they had five children. He was known for doing many of his own stunts, for his work as a singer under the name Bob Conrad in his early years, and later for roles such as Pappy Boyington in Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Conrad and Fann married in 1983, according to Wikipedia and recent family reporting. Their marriage lasted until their divorce in 2010, a span of about 27 years. Some older biography pages describe the marriage as lasting 23 years or 33 years, figures that depend on which start date the writer used. Using the 1983 start date, the 27 year figure is the one that fits the documented dates.

Together they had three daughters: Kaja Conrad, Camille Conrad, and Chelsea Conrad. With Conrad’s five children from his first marriage, he had eight children in total, a figure confirmed in his Wikipedia entry. Recent family features note that Kaja lives a private life, while her sisters have also kept a lower public profile than their father’s generation of television stars.

The family raised their daughters in Bear Valley in California, west of Yosemite National Park, according to a recent Hello Magazine family profile. Conrad also worked for a time in local law enforcement roles in that area in stories told about his later career, and the mountain setting matched the rescue shows the couple worked on in the 1990s.

The marriage ended in divorce in 2010. Sources describe the reason in general terms as marital differences. No detailed, reliable public account from either person explains the split further, and this article does not add to that speculation. Conrad died on February 8, 2020, in Malibu, California, at the age of 84, ten years after the divorce. It is not publicly confirmed whether Fann remarried after 2010.

Life After Divorce

After 2010, LaVelda Fann stepped further away from regular public attention. She has not maintained a high profile acting career in recent years, and she does not appear often in entertainment news. Profiles describe her as living a quieter life in California, including time in the High Sierra area, but her exact current residence is not confirmed in strong sources and is not stated here as fact.

Her daughters are now adults, and occasional social media posts and family features are the main way the public sees the family today. Fann herself is not a regular subject of interviews, which means updates about her health, work, or daily life are rare and should be treated with care when they appear on small websites without a source.

Many sites publish a net worth figure for her, often around 2 million dollars, with others giving a broad range of 1 million to 5 million dollars. Those figures are estimates from biography websites, not figures from financial records or a trusted news report. They are therefore presented here only as unverified estimates that circulate online, not as a confirmed amount.

Why LaVelda Fann Still Draws Interest

Interest in LaVelda Fann comes from three places at once. First, Robert Conrad remains a loved figure from classic television, and fans who revisit The Wild Wild West often ask about his family. Second, her pageant win as a teenager is a distinct start to a life that later joined Hollywood. Third, her own rescue themed shows have a small but loyal audience that remembers 1990s television.

Her story is also a reminder of how much of a person’s life can stay private even after decades next to fame. The public record gives us a birthplace in Alabama, a national teen title, a handful of screen credits, a long marriage, three daughters, and a quiet life after divorce. The rest belongs to her and her family, and honest reporting should leave it there.

FAQs

Who is LaVelda Fann?

LaVelda Ione Fann is an American actress and former beauty queen. She is known for a Miss National Teenager title in the late 1970s, for roles in shows such as High Sierra Search and Rescue, and as the second wife of actor Robert Conrad.

When were LaVelda Fann and Robert Conrad married?

Wikipedia lists their marriage as beginning in 1983 and ending in divorce in 2010. Some websites give a 1977 wedding date, but that conflicts with the documented end of Conrad’s first marriage and is treated here as unconfirmed.

How many children do LaVelda Fann and Robert Conrad have?

They have three daughters together, Kaja Conrad, Camille Conrad, and Chelsea Conrad. Robert Conrad had five more children from his first marriage, for a total of eight children.

What shows and films did LaVelda Fann appear in?

Her reported credits include A Man Called Sloane, Sworn to Vengeance, Search and Rescue, High Sierra Search and Rescue, and the film Dead Above Ground. Her career was selective, with most credits in the 1979 to early 2000s period.

You may also read: Jane Dobbins Green: The Real Story of Ray Kroc’s Second Wife

Final Thoughts

LaVelda Fann’s life joins two very American stories, a small town teenager winning a national pageant, and a classic television star building a second family in the California mountains. She acted, she raised three daughters during a 27 year marriage, and after her divorce she chose privacy.

That choice explains why so many details about her remain unconfirmed online. The respectful summary is the documented one: Alabama born, pageant winner, actress in a small set of adventure and rescue productions, former wife of Robert Conrad, and mother of Kaja, Camille, and Chelsea. The rest is hers to keep.

Featured photo: Robert Conrad – public domain photo, via Wikimedia Commons