Description: Stout, corpulent, rumpled-looking, often bespectacled, with a walrus mustache and a flair for accents.
A resident of East Mill, Utah, Wilford Brimley brings a diverse background of occupations into play with every fight. He has been employed as a farmer, rodeo rider, blacksmith, horse trainer, wrangler, bartender, stuntman and extra during the more than 20 years he has spent pursuing an acting career. The diabetic Brimley also spent time as a bodyguard for Howard Hughes, and appeared at a rally to protest a bill that would ban cockfighting in Arizona. He has also been said to have spent time operating King Pin Lanes bowling alley in South Jersey.
Born in Salt Lake City, Brimley moved to Santa Monica, California, at the age of six, where his father worked in real estate. At the outbreak of the Korean War, he left high school and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. During his three year hitch, he was stationed in the Aleutian Islands. Once out of the service, Brimley tried to go back to school, but says he was “never a good student.”
His first exposure to show business was indirect: he shoed horses for stables that furnished animals for movie and TV Westerns. Wilford began working as a riding extra for Westerns during the mid-1960s and formed a lasting friendship with the up-and-coming actor Robert Duvall who urged the cowboy to pursue acting as a career. He finally got his Screen Actors Guild card from doing stunt work, and managed small roles on such television series as “Lancer,” which was his first speaking role. Other small roles followed, including one in the feature film “The Lawman.” Then he landed a “semi-regular” part as Horace Brimley on the series “The Waltons.”
Brimley was one of the original members of the Los Angeles Actors' Theater (LAAT), which was started by Ralph Waite. The group gave Brimley, who had never had any formal training, his first experience in front of a live audience. He then abruptly quit acting and returned to the country. His return to acting was by sheer chance in 1977, when he was passing through Los Angeles hauling some horses from Denver. He stopped by to see some old friends and was asked to interview for a part in “The China Syndrome.” Brimley says that getting that role as Ted Spindler, the plant foreman, was the best thing that ever happened to him. It also was important because it led to other movies, including the roles of Bingo Gibbs in “Rodeo Girl” (1980) and Devro in “Mutant Species” (1995).
In the 1980s TV series, “Our House,” he played Gus Witherspoon, a widower in his mid-sixties, whose daughter-in-law and three grandchildren come to live with him after the death of his son. Gus is lovable, but he's decided that a man in his sixties has earned certain rights and among those is the right “to call 'em as he sees 'em.” It's a chance to communicate about life on its own terms.
Brimley’s TV and film work:
Quaker Oates and Liberty Medical commercials
“Cockpit” (2001, in production) as Governor
“Brigham City” (2001) as Sheriff Stu
“Crossfire Trail” (2001, made for TNT) as Joe Gill
“The Ballad of Lucy Whipple” (2001, made for TV) as Deputy Sheriff
Ambrose Scraggs
Comanche (2000)
“Progeny” (1999) as Dr. David Wetherly (gynecologist)
“All My Friends are Cowboys” (1998, made for PBS) as Charlie
“Summer of the Monkeys” (1998) as Grandpa Sam Ferrens
“Heaven Sent” (1998)
“Lunker Lake” (1997) as The Storyteller
“In & Out” (1997) as Frank Brackett
“My Fellow Americans” (1996) as Joe Hollis
“Chapter Perfect” (1996) as Chief Danny Hawkins
“Last of the Dogmen” (1995) as Narrator
“The Good Old Boys” (1995, made for TV) as C.C. Tarpley
“Tom Clancy’s Op Center” (1995, made for TV) as Admiral
Troy Davis
“A Place to Grow” (1995) as Jake
“Mutant Species” (1995, aka Bio-Force I) as Devro
“Hard Target” (1993) as Uncle Douvee
“The Firm” (1993) as William Devasher
“The Boys of Twilight” (1992, TV series) as Bill Huntoon
“Where the Red Fern Grows, Part Two” (1992) as Grandpa Will
“Blood River” (1991, made for TV) as Winston Patrick Culler
“Gore Vidal’s Billy the Kid” (1989, made for TNT) as Governor
Lew Wallace
“Eternity” (1989) as Eric/King
“Cocoon: The Return” (1988) as Ben Luckett
“End of the Line” (1987) as Will Haney
“Funny, You Don’t Look 200: A Constitutional Vaudeville”
(1987, made for TV) as The Constitution
“American Justice” (1986) as Sheriff Mitchell
“Our House” (1986 - 1988, TV series) as Gus Witherspoon
“Act of Vengeance” (1986, made for HBO) as Tony Boyle
“American Justice” (1986, aka “Jackals”) as Sheriff
Mitchell
“Thompson’s Last Run” (1986, made for TV) as Red Haines
“Shadows on the Wall” (1986)
“Ewoks – The Battle for Endor” (1985, made for TV) as Noa
“Murder in Space” (1985, made for TV) as Dr. Andrew McCallister
“Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins…” (1985, aka “Remo:
Unarmed and Dangerous”) as Harold Smith
“Cocoon” (1985) as Ben Luckett
“Country” (1984) as Otis
“The Natural” (1984) as Pop Fisher
“Harry & Son” (1984) as Tom
“The Hotel New Hampshire” (1984) as “Iowa Bob” Berry
“The Stone Boy” (1984) as George Jansen
“High Road to China” (1983) as Bradley Tozer
“10 to Midnight” (1983) as Captain Malone
“Tough Enough” (1982) as Bill Long
“Death Valley” (1982) (“Not even a scream escapes”)
as The Sherrif
“The Thing” (1982) as Blair
“Tender Mercies” (1982) as Harry Silver
“The Big Black Pill” (1981, TV feature length pilot for Robert
Blake’s Joe Dancer failed TV series) as Wally
“Absence of Malice” (1981) as James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney
General “Borderline” (1980) as Scooter Jackson
“Rodeo Girl” (1980, made for TV) as Bingo Gibbs
“Amber Waves” (1980, made for TV) as Pete Alberts
“Roughnecks” (1980, made for TV) as Willie
“Brubaker” (1980) as Rogers, Prison Board Member
“The Wild, Wild West Revisited” (1979, made for TV) as President
Grover Cleveland
“The Electric Horseman” (1979) as Farmer
“The China Syndrome” (1979) as Ted Spindler
“The Oregon Trail” (1976, made for TV) as Ludlow
“Lawman” (1971) as Marc Corman
“True Grit” (1969, uncredited)
Notable TV guest appearances:
“Seinfeld” (10/30/1997) as Henry Atkins, Postmaster General in
Episode #9.5: “The Junk Mail”
“Walker, Texas Ranger” (2/11/1995) as Burt Mueller in Episode
#3.15: “War Zone”
“Homicide: Life on the Street” (1/13/1994) as Harry Prentice in
Episode #2.2: “See No Evil”
“How the West Was Won” (2/26/1979) as Sheriff Daniels in Episode
#5: “Hillary”
“The Waltons” (12/22/1977) as Horace Brimley in Episode #6.13:
“The Celebration”
“The Waltons” (11/10/1977) as Horace Brimley in Episode #6.8:
“The First Casualty”
“The Waltons” (9/15/1977) as Horace Brimley in Episode #6.1: “The
Hawk”
“The Waltons” (2/17/1977) as Horace Brimley in Episode #5.20:
“The Heartbreaker”
“The Waltons” (1/1/1976) as Horace in Episode #4.15: “The
Search”
“The Waltons” (12/18/1975) as Horace in Episode #4.14: “The
Intruders”
“The Waltons” (2/20/1975) as Horace Brimley in Episode #3.22:
“The Song”
“The Waltons” (1/30/1975) as Horace in Episode #3.19: “The
Shivaree”
“Kung Fu” (1/25/1975) as Blacksmith in Episode #3.16: “One
Step to Darkness”
“The Waltons” (3/17/1974) as Horace in Episode #2.23: “The
Five Foot Shelf”