A burly, bearded character actor with a large, down-tipped nose, he appeared in many films of the '60s and '70s, especially Westerns. He was best known as farmer Isaiah Edwards on the '70s TV series Little House on the Prairie, and as ex-cop Mark Gordon on the '80s TV series Highway to Heaven. He starred in the short-lived '70s TV sitcom Carter Country, in which he played a small-town Georgia police chief.