Forceful character actor, latterly with snow-white hair, who made his film debut in 1966 and came to specialize in police captains, military men and other authority figures. A Texas native, Bradford made his film debut in Arthur Penn's intriguing study of passions boiling over in a Texas town, "The Chase" (1966). A breakthrough came for Bradford when he played the starring role of John McGill in the ABC series, "Man in a Suitcase" (1968), one of the many spy series of the day. Though less successful than "I Spy", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." or "Mission: Impossible", the show did bring him to prominence as a former intelligence agent turned private investigator in London. It also borrowed from "The Fugitive" as its peripatetic hero ventured through the European underworld looking for people to exonerate him from a charge that he let a scientist defect to the USSR.

Bradford followed up as Dr. Joe Gannon in the TV pilot "U.M.C." (1969), but virtually disappeared from the acting scene soon thereafter, leaving Chad Everett to recreate the role for the long-running series, "Medical Center". Bradford began appearing in films and TV again with another role for Penn in "The Missouri Break" (1976). He has subsequently kept busy as police figures in "Goin' South" (1978), "A Trip to Bountiful" (1986), Wim Wenders' fine "Hammett" (1982), and Mike Figgis' disturbing "Internal Affairs" (1990). One of Bradford's most prominent parts came as the man eager to develop the Milagro area in "The Milagro Beanfield War" (1988).