# Lyle Talbot

Lyle Talbot (born Lisle Henderson, also credited Lysle Talbot; February 8, 1902 – March 2, 1996) was an American stage, screen and television actor. His career in films spanned three decades, from 1931 to 1960, and he performed on a wide variety of television series from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. Among his notable roles on television was his portrayal of Ozzie Nelson's friend and neighbor Joe Randolph, a character he played for ten years on the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
Talbot began his film career under contract with Warner Bros. during the early years of the sound era. Ultimately, he appeared in more than 175 productions with various studios, first as a young matinee idol, then as the star of many B movies, and later as a character actor. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild and in 1933 served on that organization's first board of directors. His long career is recounted in the 2012 book The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century by his youngest daughter Margaret Talbot, a staff writer for The New Yorker.

## Early life

Lyle was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the only child of Florence May (née Talbot) and Joel Edward Henderson, both natives of Nebraska. In May 1902, just three months after Lyle's birth, Florence died at her mother's home in Brainard, Nebraska from complications attributed to typhoid fever. Lyle was then raised in Brainard by his widowed grandmother, Mary Talbot (nee Mary Hollywood), who legally changed her infant grandson's surname from Henderson to her own married name and added "Florenz" as his middle name in memory of her daughter. Later, as a teenager, Talbot moved with his grandmother to Omaha, Nebraska. There he graduated from high school before leaving home at age 17 to work as a hypnotist's assistant, part-time magician, and as an actor, entertaining audiences at traveling tent shows and in theatres across the American Midwest.

## Film career

After gaining years of stage experience in his travels, Talbot in 1929 established his own theatre company, "The Talbot Players", in Memphis, Tennessee, where he hired his father and stepmother, Anna Henderson, to be among the company's roster of performers. At the end of 1931, however, Talbot decided to move to California to find more lucrative acting opportunities in motion pictures. He already had some experience, though very limited, in performing on screen, namely in small roles in a few shorts, which included a bit part as a gangster in The Nightingale (1931) and playing a police captain in The Clyde Mystery (1931). Both of those low-budget, two-reel shorts were filmed in New York City and produced by Warner Bros. in affiliation with Vitaphone in Brooklyn.

### Move to Hollywood, 1932

Talbot's arrival in California at the beginning of 1932 proved to be ideal timing, for Hollywood was still in the formative years of the sound era, when studios remained busy searching for potential leading actors who were not only engaging performers, but also had acceptable voices and articulate speech patterns for the early audio technologies being used and refined on film sets. Talbot possessed those qualities, for his screen test at Warner Bros. went well despite the fact that the scene Talbot performed was from a play that satirized the studio's production chief Darryl F. Zanuck. It also impressed one of the studio's top directors, "Wild Bill" William Wellman, who immediately wanted to cast the 30-year-old actor in his upcoming film Love Is a Racket. Talbot quickly accepted Zanuck's offer to join the company's growing ranks of contract players, who included the rising stars Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Just prior to his work in Love Is a Racket, Talbot appeared as a major supporting character, Dr. Jerome Preston, in Unholy Love, a drama produced by Warner Bros. in cooperation with Albert Ray Productions. Lyle's portrayal of "Jerry" did not go unnoticed by film industry trade publications. In its July 9, 1932 review of Unholy Love, the popular journal Motion Picture Herald encourages theater owners and prospective audiences to direct special attention on three performers in the film: "Don't overlook Beryl Mercer and Ivan Lebedeff, as well as Lyle Talbot, "whom Warner Brothers are grooming for stellar roles."
Some other notable films in which Talbot was cast in his first years at Warner Bros. are Three on a Match (1932), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) with Spencer Tracy, College Coach (1933) with Pat O'Brien and Dick Powell, Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933), Ladies They Talk About, and Mandalay (1934) where he portrays an alcoholic doctor trying to quit drinking. He continued to perform in a variety of co-starring roles, such as romancing Mae West in Go West, Young Man (1936), pursuing opera star Grace Moore in One Night of Love (1934), and playing a bank robber on the run in Heat Lightning (1934).
He appeared opposite an array of other stars during his career, including Bette Davis, Ann Dvorak, Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Astor, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Glenda Farrell, Joan Blondell, Marion Davies, and Shirley Temple. He also shared the screen with Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy and Tyrone Power. Overall in the course of his entertainment career, Talbot performed in over 175 films.

### "The 42nd Street Special" and "cheap socks"

Early in his career at Warner Bros., Talbot took part in one of Hollywood's most extravagant and ambitious publicity events, a five-week rail trip in 1933 across the United States with Bette Davis, Preston Foster, Leo Carrillo, Glenda Farrell, cowboy star Tom Mix, Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm, comedian Joe E. Brown, and a chorus line of Busby Berkeley dancers. The established studio celebrities and rising stars and personnel traveled aboard "The 42nd Street Special," a passenger train that was elaborately decorated in silver and gold leaf and trimmed with electric lights. Stopping at dozens of cities along their journey, the Hollywood travelers widely promoted Warners' new Busby Berkeley musical 42nd Street. They also took the opportunity when the train paused in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 1933, to attend the first inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a show of the studio's support for the nation's new president. Days later, after arriving in New York City on March 9, the train returned to California. In the extensive news coverage of The 42nd Street Special's itinerary, Talbot—already divorced from a brief marriage in 1930—was described in reports as the train's "Railway Romeo" and as being "'handsome as hell'" and "'likable as a collie.'" Warner Bros. was evidently very pleased with his performances for the studio, both on- and off-set, for during the publicity excursion, the New York-based trade paper The Film Daily reports on March 1, "Lyle Talbot, now on the '42nd Street' special train touring the country, has been placed under long-term contract by Warners."
The monthly movie-fan magazine Photoplay profiled Talbot in its March 1933 issue, distributing it to its subscribers and newsstands at the same time the 42nd Street Special was still touring the nation. Written by Sara Hamilton and titled "Born to be a Villain But Lyle Talbot wishes they would let him go straight", the article provided readers with some insight into the popular actor's general lifestyle at the time, along with some details about his early life and personal preferences, right down to his "cheap socks":
   Usually the villain in his screen roles, Lyle Talbot is probably the most unvillain-like person in Hollywood. He's a quiet, unassuming young man with a bright Irish wit, who lives alone in a modest flat with his dog, likes golf and tennis and goes bicycle riding every chance he gets. He cares little for publicity ballyhoo and wants to spread his career out over a period of years, rather than have it burst into a sudden skyrocket of flame and then die out... He's five feet, eleven and a half inches tall; weighs 172 pounds, has brown hair and blue eyes that a girl would give anything to possess. He has grand taste in clothes, his ties, socks and shirts always blending. He is never seen where actors are usually seen. He drives a Ford, loves filet of sole, and his pet economy is cheap socks. He loathes people who talk too much. Lyle himself talks well and at length. He's made fourteen pictures in eight months and frets considerably about the villain thing. He never wants to be just a nice young hero but he would like to be a little nice on the screen for a change. He's not married and he's twenty-nine years old.

### SAG and later films

Back in Hollywood after the 1933 publicity tour and working long hours six days a week, Talbot in July 1933 decided to become a member of the first board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild. His activism in SAG union affairs reportedly hurt his career. In 1936, Warner Bros. dropped his contract, which immediately affected Talbot's acting opportunities. He seldom received starring roles again, although he continued to find steady work as a capable character actor, often playing the "other man", affable neighbors, or crafty villains with equal finesse. Talbot's supporting roles spanned the gamut, as he played cowboys, pirates, detectives, street cops, surgeons, psychiatrists, soldiers, judges, newspaper editors, storekeepers, and boxers. In reflecting on his career during a 1984 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he stated, "'It's really simple, I never turned down a job, not one...ever.'" Such universal acceptance of acting offers led to his performing in, as Talbot himself described them in the same Times interview, "'some real stinkers'". Those films include three by Ed Wood that are now distinguished in American cinematic history for their extraordinarily low production values: Glen or Glenda (1953), Jail Bait (1954), and a motion picture often cited by media reviewers as the "'worst film ever made'", Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). Talbot also worked with the Three Stooges in Gold Raiders (1951) and played villains in four comedies with The Bowery Boys.
Talbot was notable too for being the first live-action actor to play two prominent DC Comics characters on-screen: Commissioner Gordon in Batman and Robin, and supervillain Lex Luthor in Atom Man vs. Superman (who at the time was simply known as Luthor). Talbot began a longstanding tradition of actors in these roles that were most recently (as of 2022) filled by Jeffrey Wright and Jesse Eisenberg, respectively. He also had a role on The Vigilante movie serial too for the original Vigilante Greg Saunders, again for DC Comics
In 1960, after an absence of more than 20 years, Talbot returned to the Warner Bros. big screen, appearing in the Franklin D. Roosevelt bio-pic, Sunrise at Campobello written by Dore Schary and starring Ralph Bellamy. It was Talbot's penultimate film appearance.

## Return to the stage

Having started his career in the theatre and later co-starred on Broadway in 1940–1941 in Separate Rooms with Glenda Farrell and Alan Dinehart, Talbot returned to the stage in the 1960s and 1970s, starring in national road company versions of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker with Ann B. Davis; Gore Vidal's The Best Man with Hugh Marlowe and K.T. Stevens; Neil Simon's The Odd Couple with Harvey Stone and Barefoot in the Park with Virginia Mayo; Arthur Sumner Long's play Never Too Late with Penny Singleton; and appearing as Captain Brackett in a 1967 revival of South Pacific at (Lincoln Center) starring Florence Henderson and Giorgio Tozzi. He also starred in Preston Jones' "The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia" at the Alley Theatre in Houston and the Chicago area Lincolnshire Theater. He rode the wave of the dinner theater phenomenon in the 1970s, acting in light comedies onstage in various Midwestern towns where former television actors were major attractions. As early as 1962, Talbot directed and co-starred with Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and a young Sally "Hot Lips" Kellerman in Marriage Go Round, a play Talbot and the Nelsons took on the road again in the early 1970s.

## Television, 1950s–1980s

Although Talbot once starred in the film Trapped by Television (1936), the invention of TV actually revived his acting career after the quality of his movie roles began to decline. Talbot was a frequent presence on American television from the 1950s well into the 1970s with occasional appearances in the 1980s. From 1955 to 1966, he regularly appeared in episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as neighbor Joe Randolph. He also had a recurring role (1955–58) as Paul Fonda in numerous episodes of The Bob Cummings Show.
Talbot also acted in a variety of early television Westerns. He played Colonel Billings three times on The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951–1955), appeared four times as a judge on the syndicated series The Cisco Kid, guest-starred in four episodes of Gene Autry's The Range Rider in 1952 and 1953, was cast five times in different roles on The Lone Ranger between 1950 and 1955, and played Sheriff Clyde Chadwick in the 1959 episode "The Sanctuary" on Colt .45, and the episode "Two Tickets to Ten Strike" on Maverick in 1959. In the 1950s and beyond, he performed as well in a wide range of other drama and comedy programs. In 1955 he portrayed the character Baylor in six episodes or "chapters" of the early sci-fi series Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe. From 1953 to 1957, he was cast as different characters in four episodes of the anthology series Lux Video Theatre. In 1967, he played Colonel Blake three times on The Beverly Hillbillies and appeared three times between 1965 and 1971 on Green Acres. On one episode of Green Acres in 1969, Talbot played himself but in the fictional role of a senator, spoofing actors such as Ronald Reagan who actually became politicians later in their careers.
Some examples of other series on which Talbot made guest appearances include Annie Oakley; It's a Great Life; The Public Defender; The Pride of the Family; Crossroads; Hey, Jeannie!; The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; Broken Arrow; The Millionaire; Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Tales of Wells Fargo; Buckskin; Cimarron City; Maverick; Angel; Hawaiian Eye; 77 Sunset Strip; Surfside 6; The Roaring 20s; The Restless Gun; Stagecoach West; The Red Skelton Show; The Lucy Show, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok; Topper; The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin; Laredo; Perry Mason; The Real McCoys; Rawhide; Wagon Train; Charlie's Angels; Newhart; The Dukes of Hazzard; St. Elsewhere; Adam-12; and Who's the Boss?.
Talbot continued to act on television into the 1980s. He also narrated at that time two televised PBS biographies, The Case of Dashiell Hammett (1982) and World Without Walls (1986) about pioneering female pilot Beryl Markham. Both PBS programs were produced and written by his son Stephen Talbot, a former child actor who portrayed the recurring character Gilbert Bates on Leave It to Beaver, another series on which his father performed in several episodes.

## Personal life and death

Talbot had many romantic entanglements and several brief marriages to Elaine Melchoir (1930), Marguerite Cramer (1937–1940), Abigail Adams (1942), and Keven "Eve" McClure (1946–1947) who next married novelist Henry Miller. Talbot married for the fifth and final time in 1948 to Margaret Epple, a young actress and singer who adopted the name "Paula" and sometimes went by the stage names of "Paula Deaven" or "Margaret Abbott." She was 20; he was a 46-year-old actor with a drinking problem. Under Paula's influence, Talbot quit drinking, and the couple often performed together on stage in summer stock and community theater. They had four children, lived in Studio City, California (where Talbot was honorary mayor in the 1960s), and remained married for more than 40 years, until Paula's death in 1989.
After his wife's death, Talbot moved to San Francisco, where both of his sons and their families lived. On March 2, 1996, Talbot died at the age of 94 at his home in San Francisco, California. His death was attributed to congestive heart failure. He was remembered by SFGate as "a film and television actor who shared the screen with such legends as Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, Humphrey Bogart, Carole Lombard, and Barbara Stanwyck." The Los Angeles Times recalled Talbot as a "versatile actor adept in every medium from tent shows to television...an actor who always worked."
He was survived by his children, three of whom—Stephen Talbot, David Talbot, and Margaret Talbot—had established careers in media production, writing, or journalism. Cynthia Talbot, Lyle's elder daughter, instead pursued a medical career, becoming a physician and later a residency director in Portland, Oregon.

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1932 | Unholy Love | Dr. Jerome Preston 'Jerry' Gregory | |
| 1932 | Love Is a Racket | Edw. Griswold 'Eddie' Shaw | Alternative title: Such Things Happen |
| 1932 | Stranger in Town | Brice | |
| 1932 | The Purchase Price | Eddie Fields | |
| 1932 | Miss Pinkerton | Newspaper Editor | Uncredited |
| 1932 | The Thirteenth Guest | Phil Winston | |
| 1932 | Klondike | Dr. Robert Cromwell | |
| 1932 | Big City Blues | Len 'Lenny' Sully | Uncredited |
| 1932 | Three on a Match | Michael Loftus | |
| 1932 | No More Orchids | Tony Gauge | |
| 1932 | 20,000 Years in Sing Sing | Bud Saunders | |
| 1933 | Parachute Jumper | Minor Role | (scenes deleted) |
| 1933 | Ladies They Talk About | Don | |
| 1933 | 42nd Street | Geoffrey Warning | Voice, Uncredited |
| 1933 | Girl Missing | Raymond Fox | |
| 1933 | The Life of Jimmy Dolan | Doc Woods | |
| 1933 | She Had to Say Yes | Daniel Drew | |
| 1933 | A Shriek in the Night | Ted Kord | |
| 1933 | Mary Stevens, M.D. | Don Andrews | |
| 1933 | College Coach | Herbert P. 'Buck' Weaver | |
| 1933 | Havana Widows | Bob Jones | |
| 1934 | Mandalay | Dr. Gregory Burton | |
| 1934 | Heat Lightning | Jeff | |
| 1934 | Registered Nurse | Dr. Greg Connolly | |
| 1934 | Fog Over Frisco | Spencer Carlton | |
| 1934 | Return of the Terror | Dr. Leonard Goodman | |
| 1934 | The Dragon Murder Case | Dale Leland | |
| 1934 | One Night of Love | Bill Houston | |
| 1934 | A Lost Lady | Neil | |
| 1934 | Murder in the Clouds | 'Three Star' Bob Halsey | |
| 1934 | The Secret Bride | Trailer Narrator | Voice, Uncredited |
| 1935 | Red Hot Tires | Wallace Storm | |
| 1935 | While the Patient Slept | Ross Lonergan | |
| 1935 | It Happened in New York | Charley Barnes | |
| 1935 | Our Little Girl | Rolfe Brent | |
| 1935 | Chinatown Squad | Ted Lacey | |
| 1935 | Oil for the Lamps of China | Jim | |
| 1935 | Page Miss Glory | Slattery of the Express | |
| 1935 | The Case of the Lucky Legs | Dr. Bob Doray | |
| 1935 | Broadway Hostess | Lucky | |
| 1936 | Boulder Dam | Lacy | |
| 1936 | The Singing Kid | Robert 'Bob' Carey | |
| 1936 | The Law in Her Hands | Frank 'Legs' Gordon | |
| 1936 | Murder by an Aristocrat | Dr. Allen Carick | |
| 1936 | Trapped by Television | Fred Dennis | |
| 1936 | Go West, Young Man | Francis X. Harrigan | |
| 1936 | Mind Your Own Business | Crane | |
| 1937 | Affairs of Cappy Ricks | Bill Peck | |
| 1937 | What Price Vengeance? | 'Dynamite' Hogan / Tom Connors | |
| 1937 | Three Legionnaires | Pvt. Jimmy Barton | |
| 1937 | West Bound Limited | Dave Tolliver aka Bob Kirk | |
| 1937 | Second Honeymoon | Robert "Bob" Benton | |
| 1938 | Change of Heart | Phillip Reeves | |
| 1938 | Call of the Yukon | Hugo Henderson | |
| 1938 | One Wild Night | Singer Martin | |
| 1938 | Gateway | Henry Porter | |
| 1938 | The Arkansas Traveler | Matt Collins | |
| 1938 | I Stand Accused | Charles Eastman | |
| 1939 | Forged Passport | Jack Scott | |
| 1939 | They Asked for It | Marty Collins | |
| 1939 | Second Fiddle | Willie Hogger | |
| 1939 | Torture Ship | Lt. Bob Bennett | |
| 1939 | Miracle on Main Street | Dick Porter | |
| 1940 | He Married His Wife | Paul Hunter | |
| 1940 | Parole Fixer | Ross Waring | |
| 1942 | She's in the Army | Army Capt. Steve Russell | |
| 1942 | They Raid by Night | Capt. Robert Owen | |
| 1942 | Mexican Spitfire's Elephant | Reddy | |
| 1943 | Man of Courage | George Dickson | |
| 1943 | A Night for Crime | Joe Powell | |
| 1943 | The Meanest Man in the World | Bill Potts | Uncredited |
| 1944 | Up in Arms | Sgt. Gelsey | |
| 1944 | The Falcon Out West | Tex Irwin | |
| 1944 | Gambler's Choice | Yellow Gloves Weldon | |
| 1944 | Are These Our Parents? | George Kent | |
| 1944 | Sensations of 1945 | Randall | |
| 1944 | Dixie Jamboree | Anthony 'Tony' Sardell | |
| 1944 | Trail to Gunsight | U. S. Marshal Bill Hollister | |
| 1944 | Mystery of the River Boat | Rudolph Toller | Serial |
| 1944 | One Body Too Many | Jim Davis | |
| 1945 | Sensation Hunters | Randsll | |
| 1946 | Gun Town | Lucky Dorgan | |
| 1946 | Murder Is My Business | Buell Renslow | |
| 1946 | Song of Arizona | King Blaine | |
| 1946 | Strange Impersonation | Inspector Malloy | |
| 1946 | Chick Carter, Detective | Chick Carter | |
| 1947 | Danger Street | Charles Johnson | |
| 1947 | The Vigilante: Fighting Hero of the West | George Pierce | |
| 1948 | Devil's Cargo | Johnny Morello | |
| 1948 | The Vicious Circle | Miller | |
| 1948 | Joe Palooka in Winner Take All | Henerson | |
| 1948 | Thunder in the Pines | Nick Roulade | |
| 1948 | Parole, Inc. | Police Commissioner Hughes | |
| 1948 | Appointment with Murder | Fred M. Muller | |
| 1948 | Quick on the Trigger | Garvey Yager | |
| 1948 | Shep Comes Home | Dr. Wilson | |
| 1948 | Highway 13 | Company Detective | |
| 1949 | Joe Palooka in the Big Fight | Lt. Muldoon | |
| 1949 | Fighting Fools | Blinky Harris | |
| 1949 | The Mutineers | Capt. Jim Duncan | |
| 1949 | Sky Dragon | Andrew J. Barrett | |
| 1949 | Batman and Robin | Commissioner Jim Gordon | |
| 1949 | Mississippi Rhythm | | |
| 1949 | Ringside | Radio Announcer | |
| 1949 | She Shoulda Said No! | Police Captain Hayes | |
| 1950 | Dick Tracy | B.R. Ayne aka The Brain | TV series, 7 episodes |
| 1950 | The Daltons' Women | Jim Thorne | |
| 1950 | Everybody's Dancin' | Contractor | |
| 1950 | Johnny One-Eye | Official from District Attorney's Office | |
| 1950 | Champagne for Caesar | Executive No. 2 | |
| 1950 | Lucky Losers | Bruce McDermott | |
| 1950 | Federal Man | Agent Johnson | |
| 1950 | Atom Man vs. Superman | Lex Luthor / Atom Man | |
| 1950 | Triple Trouble | Prison Yard Guard | Uncredited |
| 1950 | Big Timber | Logger #1 | |
| 1950 | Border Rangers | Ranger Capt. McLain | |
| 1950 | Cherokee Uprising | Chief Marshal | |
| 1950 | The Jackpot | Fred Burns | |
| 1950 | Revenue Agent | Augustis King | |
| 1950 | The Du Pont Story | Eugene du Pont | |
| 1950 | One Too Many | Mr. Boyer | |
| 1950–1954 | The Cisco Kid | Various roles | TV series, 4 episodes |
| 1950–1956 | The Lone Ranger | Various roles | TV series, 5 episodes |
| 1951 | Colorado Ambush | Sheriff Ed Lowery | |
| 1951 | Blue Blood | Teasdale | |
| 1951 | Abilene Trail | Dr. Martin | |
| 1951 | Fingerprints Don't Lie | Police Lt. Grayson | |
| 1951 | Fury of the Congo | Grant | |
| 1951 | Mask of the Dragon | Police Lt. Ralph McLaughlin | |
| 1951 | Man from Sonora | Sheriff Frank Casey | |
| 1951 | The Scarf | City Detective | Uncredited |
| 1951 | Hurricane Island | Physician | Uncredited |
| 1951 | Oklahoma Justice | Doc Willoughby | Uncredited |
| 1951 | Gold Raiders | Taggert | Alternative title: The Stooges Go West |
| 1951 | Jungle Manhunt | Dr. Mitchell Heller | |
| 1951 | Lawless Cowboys | Rank - Town Banker | Uncredited |
| 1951 | Purple Heart Diary | Maj. Green | |
| 1951 | Texas Lawmen | Dr. Riley | Uncredited |
| 1951 | Stage to Blue River | Perkins | |
| 1951–1956 | The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok | W.T. Emerson / Bank Teller / Blackburn | TV series, 4 episodes |
| 1952 | The Old West | Doc Lockwood | |
| 1952 | Texas City | Captain Hamilton | |
| 1952 | With a Song in My Heart | Radio Director | Uncredited |
| 1952 | Outlaw Women | Judge Roger Dixon | |
| 1952 | Kansas Territory | Sam Collins | Uncredited |
| 1952 | African Treasure | Roy DeHaven, alias Pat Gilroy | |
| 1952 | Down Among the Sheltering Palms | Maj. Gerald Curwin | Uncredited |
| 1952 | Sea Tiger | Mr. Williams, Insurance Man | |
| 1952 | Montana Incident | Mooney | |
| 1952 | Untamed Women | Col. Loring | |
| 1952 | Feudin' Fools | Big Jim | |
| 1952 | Desperadoes' Outpost | Walter Fleming | |
| 1952 | Son of Geronimo: Apache Avenger | Col. Foster | Serial, [Chs.5-6] |
| 1952 | Wyoming Roundup | Franklin | |
| 1952 | The Pathfinder | British Ship Captain | |
| 1952-1954 | Death Valley Days | San Francisco Mayor / Dr. Harper / Silas Capshaw | TV series, 4 episodes |
| 1953 | Star of Texas | Telegraph Operator | |
| 1953 | White Lightning | Rocky Gibraltar | |
| 1953 | Trail Blazers | Deputy Sheriff McLain | |
| 1953 | The Roy Rogers Show | John Zachary | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1953 | Glen or Glenda | Insp. Warren | |
| 1953 | Mesa of Lost Women | Narrator | Voice |
| 1953 | Clipped Wings | Capt. Blair | |
| 1953 | Wings of the Hawk | Jones | Uncredited |
| 1953 | The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd | Boston Official | Serial, Uncredited |
| 1953 | Tumbleweed | Weber | |
| 1953 | Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe | Baylor | Serial, 6 episodes |
| 1954 | Trader Tom of the China Seas | Barent | |
| 1954 | Gunfighters of the Northwest | Inspector Wheeler | |
| 1954 | Jail Bait | Inspector Johns | Directed by Ed Wood |
| 1954 | The Mad Magician | Program Hawker | Uncredited |
| 1954 | Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl | Capt. Pace | |
| 1954 | The Desperado | Judge | Uncredited |
| 1954 | Tobor the Great | Admiral | Uncredited |
| 1954 | Two Guns and a Badge | Doctor | Uncredited |
| 1954 | There's No Business Like Show Business | Stage Manager | Uncredited |
| 1954 | The Steel Cage | Square, Convict | (segment "The Hostages") |
| 1954–1958 | December Bride | Bill Monahan / Mr. Winters / Mr. Butterfield | TV series, 6 episodes |
| 1955 | Hallmark Hall of Fame | | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1955 | Jail Busters | Cy Bowman | |
| 1955 | Sudden Danger | Harry Woodruff | |
| 1955–1959 | The Bob Cummings Show | Paul Fonda | TV series, 22 episodes |
| 1956 | Navy Log | Captain Morgan | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1956 | The Millionaire | Joe Price | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1956 | Calling Homicide | Tony Fuller | |
| 1956 | The Great Man | Harry Connors | |
| 1956–1966 | The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet | Joe Randolph | TV series, 71 episodes |
| 1957 | Science Fiction Theatre | General Dothan | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1957 | Tales of Wells Fargo | Reporter | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1957 | God Is My Partner | Dr. Warburton, Psychiatrist | |
| 1958 | M Squad | Paul Crowley | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1958 | The Notorious Mr. Monks | Leonardo, Prosecuting Attorney | |
| 1958 | Leave It to Beaver | Charles "Chuck" Dennison | TV series, 2 episodes |
| 1958 | High School Confidential | William Remington Kane | |
| 1958 | The Hot Angel | Van Richards | |
| 1958–1959 | The Restless Gun | Various roles | TV series, 2 episodes |
| 1959 | City of Fear | Chief Jensen | |
| 1959 | Maverick | TV Series - episode Two Tickets to Ten Strike | Martin Scott |
| 1959 | Plan 9 from Outer Space | General Roberts | |
| 1959 | The Ann Sothern Show | Finletter | TV, 1 episode |
| 1960 | Sunrise at Campobello | Mr. Brimmer | |
| 1960 | Surfside 6 | Alan Crandell | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1960 | Hawaiian Eye | George Wallace | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1960 | The DuPont Show with June Allyson | Mr. Anders | CBS-TV, 1 episode, "The Trench Coat" |
| 1960 | Richard Diamond, Private Detective | Victor Long | Episode: "The Lovely Fraud" |
| 1961 | Mister Ed | George Hausner | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1961 | Lawman | Orville Luster | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1962 | Make Room for Daddy | Dr. Crawford | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1962 | Dennis the Menace | Mayor | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1962–1967 | The Beverly Hillbillies | Colonel Blake | TV series, 4 episodes |
| 1963 | Arrest and Trial | Phil Paige | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1963 | The Lucy Show | Howard Wilcox / Mr. Stanford | TV series, 2 episodes |
| 1964 | 77 Sunset Strip | Tatum | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1964 | Petticoat Junction | Mr. Cheever | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1965 | Run for Your Life | Steven Blakely | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1965 | The Smothers Brothers Show | Marty Miller | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1965–1966 | Laredo | Various roles | TV series, 2 episodes |
| 1968 | Dragnet | William Joseph Cornelius | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1969 | Green Acres | Senator Lyle Talbot | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1970 | Here's Lucy | Freddy Fox / Harry's Lawyer | TV series, 2 episodes |
| 1972 | O'Hara, U.S. Treasury | Art Prescott | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1973 | Adam-12 | Avery Dawson | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1979 | Charlie's Angels | Mills | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1984 | The Dukes of Hazzard | Carter Stewart | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1984 | St. Elsewhere | Johnny Barnes | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1981 | An Ozzie and Harriet Christmas | Self | TV special on KTLA in Los Angeles |
| 1985 | 227 | Harold | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1986 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Mr. Fletcher | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1986 | Who's the Boss? | Ralph | TV series, 1 episode |
| 1987 | Newhart | Cousin Ned | TV series, 1 episode, "It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To" |
| 1987 | Amazon Women on the Moon | Prescott Townsend | (segment "Amazon Women on the Moon"), Uncredited, (final film role) |