Career Highlights: The Secret Life of an American Wife, A Different Story, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Night Fever
First Major Screen Credit: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Night Fever (1965)
Biography
In films from the mid-'60s, American actor Richard Bull was seen in The Satan Bug (1965), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Secret Life of an American Wife (1969), Newman's Law (1971), and several other major Hollywood productions. Many of these roles were bits or atmosphere characters: guards, policemen, and the like. Television afforded Bull larger character roles, especially in the sitcom field. Within a ten-year period (1964-1974), he guested on Gidget, Family Affair, Gomer Pyle, USMC, The Andy Griffith Show, My 3 Sons, Room 222, and Bewitched (as pilgrim John Alden in a "flashback" episode). He also had a recurring role as a ship's doctor on the mid-'60s fantasy weekly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. From 1974 through 1982, Richard Bull played store proprietor Nels Oleson, the even-tempered, long-suffering husband of overbearing Harriet Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bull began his stage career at the famous Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. He left Los Angeles in 1994 with his wife Barbara "Bobbi" Collentine to live in Chicago.
Career
Bull has made nearly 100 film and tv appearances including:
In television:
Harrigan and Son (1961) as Lawson in "They Were All in Step But Jim"