Victor French - Early Career

Early Career

Born in Santa Barbara, California, to Ted French, an actor and stuntman who appeared in westerns in the 1940s, Victor later appeared with his father in one episode of Gunsmoke entitled "Prime Of Life" in 1966, as well as a war film in 1963 called The Quick And The Dead. Ted French died in 1978.

Following in his father's footsteps, French also began his television career as a stuntman in mostly westerns and anthology shows. During this period, he guest starred in some thirty-nine television series, including the episode "The Noose" of the syndicated series Two Faces West; his fellow guest star on the segment was veteran western star L.Q. Jones.

He appeared twenty-three times on the long-running Western drama Gunsmoke, often playing a crook, whether dangerous or bumbling. On October 25, 1971, he portrayed a cold-hearted gunman named "Trafton", who while robbing the communion vessels in a Roman Catholic church murders a priest. As the clergyman lies dying, he forgives his killer, a development which dogs Trafton, who holds human life in low regard, for the entire episode until he is shot to death by Marshal Matt Dillon. French guest starred in another episode, titled Matt's Love Story, in which Matt Dillon falls in love with a character played by Michael Learned. This episode would then lead to the story line in the 1990 made for TV movie, Gunsmoke: The Last Apache in which Matt rejoins with Learned's character "Mike" and he finds out he has a grown daughter.

The appearance also led to his re-teaming with Learned in a guest-actor role on The Waltons a year later. The episode, entitled The Fullfillment has French playing a blacksmith named Curtis Norton whose wife could not have children and subsequently adopts an eight-year-old orphan boy who has come to stay the week on Walton's Mountain.

This led to his being cast in his most well-known role as Mr. Edwards in the TV series based on the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder entitled Little House on the Prairie beginning in 1973.

In other work, French also starred opposite Elvis Presley in the 1969 western, Charro! and played the recurring character "Agent 44" in the NBC series Get Smart in 1965-1966, where he portrayed an undercover spy who showed up in the worst, most unlikely of places (like a mailbox or a porthole in a boat) and appeared in a few episodes of Bonanza, starring with Michael Landon at that time.