Don Collier

Donald Mounger Collier (October 17, 1928 – September 13, 2021) was an American actor best known for Western films and NBC television shows such as The High Chaparral, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Outlaws as Marshal Will Foreman.

Early years

Collier was born on October 17, 1928, in Santa Monica, California on the West Coast. He worked as a geologist, a logging hand, a ranch hand, and a surveyor and served in both the United States Navy and the Merchant Marine. After his naval service, Collier worked as an extra in a few films before attending small Baptist institution Hardin–Simmons College in Abilene, Texas, on an athletic scholarship. He did not return to college after his first year, but he later studied geology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Career

For about three years, Collier enhanced his acting skills through work with a drama group headed by Estelle Harman. He found favor with directors and producers because his ranch-hand background enabled him to do his own fighting and horseback riding and driving a wagon with a team of horses without the use of stunt doubles..

On television in several series, Collier portrayed ranch hand Sam Butler in The High Chaparral starring Leif Ericson, Cameron Mitchell, Henry Darrow, Mark Slade, Linda Cristal and Frank Silvera, set on the desert ranch in the old old Southwest and American frontier in the southern portion of the old Arizona Territory, near the U.S.-Mexican border in Apache Indian country, deputy Will Foreman in Outlaws, and William Tompkins in The Young Riders.