Doctors, cowboys, frat boys…actor Tim Matheson has seen his fair share of characters in his storied six-decade career. But with his most recent role as Vernon “Doc” Mullins on the hit Netflix series, Virgin River, audiences are being reintroduced to the major acting chops of the 75-year-old former Marine.

“In my life I’ve played a lot of doctors,” he’s told Survived the Shows. “I mean, when I did a western with Kurt Russell, I was a doctor. Even in Animal House! There must be something about me that is, you know, I have a good bedside manner, perhaps.”

When did Tim Matheson start acting?

Born and raised in the shadows of the Hollywood sign, actor Tim Matheson says his career was a series of coincidences and timely events, but he always wanted to be an actor. His shot at the bright lights came at age 13 in Robert Young’s Window on Main Street, followed by three episodes of Leave It To Beaver.

“I was so starstruck meeting Jerry Mathers,” Matheson recalled. “He invited me to his house for a party and I did three episodes over the course of a season and I remember thinking, ‘This is it, man. This is the Hollywood Life! This is how it beings!’ And I kept thinking that with all those first jobs and then nothing would happen. That’s the real Hollywood.”

Was Tim Matheson in the military?

Tim’s dad was a training pilot, which inspired him to enlist in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1968 at 21 years old. That same year, Tim’s film Yours, Mine and Ours, starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, was released.

At the end of the film, his character, Mike Beardsley, leaves his family to join the Marine Corps. “On the day I was to film a physical in the movie, I actually was called to go to my draft physical as well,” Matheson said. “We had to reschedule shooting.”

Wanting to keep his acting career on the down-low during his Marine stay, it was only a matter of time before it became known. Finally, a friend who served in the 4th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California blabbed.

“He did blow my cover.” Having just left the Marines with his hair cropped short, Matheson starred in How To Commit Marriage, donning a wig for the film.

And then changing it up, Matheson said, “To play counterculture hippies, I let my hair grow and put on a short hair wig when I would go to my Reserve unit. That worked out for awhile and then after two and a half years, my gunny was affronted by the fact that I was wearing a short hair wig and wasn’t following to the letter, the short, short, hair.”

But with his boyish smile, Matheson told his gunny that he was “the exception that proves the rule because I needed the long hair for my civilian career.”

He ended his military service as a lance corporal, but had the opportunity to attend Officer Candidates School. He turned it down to pursue his love of acting. “I was a Hollywood kid.”

What is Tim Matheson best known for?

Matheson landed a role in The Virginian, a western, and the cowboy theme continued with roles in Bonanza and in 1974’s The Quest alongside a young Kurt Russell.

“The Quest was one of the most fun things I ever did and I gotta tell you, I worked with some of the best actors I’ve ever worked with: Mel Blanc and Don Messick. Think of the voice Mel gave Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny!” he recalled.