Richard Bull (actor)

Richard Bull (June 26, 1924 – February 3, 2014) was an American film, stage and television actor. He was best known for his performance as Nels Oleson, the kindly proprietor of Oleson's Mercantile and the long suffering husband of his wife Harriet on the NBC TV series Little House on the Prairie which aired from 1974 to 1983 and "Doc" on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Bull began his stage career at the famous Goodman Theatre in Chicago. He left Los Angeles in 1994 with his wife Barbara "Bobbi" Collentine to live in Chicago.

Death

Bull died on the morning of February 3, 2014 at the Motion Picture Television Fund campus in Calabasas, California of pneumonia. He was 89 years old.^[1]

Bibliography

2013 - Richard Bull Forever, by Patrick Loubatière

Career

Bull made nearly 100 film and TV appearances including:

Television

• Harrigan and Son (1961) as Lawson in "They Were All in Step But Jim"
• The Eleventh Hour (1964) as Phil Whitman in "Sunday Father"
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968 TV Series) as The Doctor, various episodes
• Kentucky Jones (1965) as Harold Erkel in episodes "The Victim" and "The Return of Wong Lee"
• Mission: Impossible - (1966) as an agent for the Impossible Missions Force
• Mannix - (1968-1974) 7 episodes as 4 different characters
• Gomer Pyle, USMC - (1966) as the psychologist in the episode "Gomer and the Little Space Men".
• Bonanza - (1969-1972) as Jess Hill (2 episodes)
• The Streets of San Francisco - (1973-1974) as the coroner
• Barnaby Jones - (1973-1976) 4 episodes as J.I. Fletcher
• Little House on the Prairie - (1974-1983) as Nels Oleson
• Wipeout (1976) as Sheriff Safian
• Dead Man's Run as Mr. Moore
• Blind Terror (1973) as Mr. Strather
• Perchance to Kill (1973) as J.I. Fletcher
• Hill Street Blues - (1985) as Capt. Furillo's father
• Highway to Heaven - (1985) as the doctor (2 episodes)
• Designing Women - (1988) as Everett
• Normal - (2003 film) as Roy, Sr.

Film

• Witless Protection - (2008) as Sheriff Smoot
• The Parallax View - (1974) as a Parallax Goon
• High Plains Drifter - (1973) as Asa Goodwin
• Executive Action - (1973) as a gunman on "Team A"
• The Andromeda Strain - (1971) as an Air Force major
• The Stalking Moon - (1968) as the doctor
• Moonfire - (1970) as Leslie Russell
• The Satan Bug - (1965) As Federal Agent

References

External links

• Richard Bull at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Bull at AllRovi