System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Victor French, Actor - Highway to Heaven
December 04, 1934 - June 15, 1989
Victor French was born in Santa Barbara, California on December 4, 1934. His father was a stuntman and French wanted to get into acting from early childhood. French made his screen debut in westerns, where his unkempt beard and scowling countenance made him a perfect villain. He carried over this image into television, making multiple appearances on such series as Gunsmoke and Bonanza. He also played on TV’s "Lassie" in his early acting years and appeared on the TV series “Get Smart” as an insurance agent on the episode Too Many Chiefs. He then played the first Agent 44, appearing in that role in five episodes of “Get Smart”s first season (1965). French was briefly married, but divorced after two years.
French had a starring role in Little House on the Prairie. It was former Bonanza star Michael Landon, a great friend of French's, who "humanized" the veteran screen villain with the role of farmer Isiah Edwards in the weekly TV drama. French temporarily left Little House in 1977 to star in his own sitcom, Carter Country, in which he played an affable Southern sheriff who tried his best to accommodate the ever-changing racial relationships of the 1970s.
In 1984, French again worked with Landon, who cast him as ex-cop Michael Gordon, whose bitterness at the world was softened by the presence of a guardian angel (Landon), in the popular TV series Highway to Heaven. French directed every third episode of this series, extending his directorial activities to the Los Angeles theatre scene, where he won a Critics Circle award in 1982, for his staging of 12 Angry Men.
In contrast to his earlier bad-guy roles, French went out of his way in the 1980s to avoid parts that required him to exhibit cruelty or inhumanity. Victor French died on June 15, 1989, shortly after completing work on the final season of Highway to Heaven. The cause of death was lung cancer. He was 54.
