Fess Parker

Discharged in 1946, he enrolled at Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, with assistance from the GI Bill. After an automobile collision, he was stabbed in the neck by the other driver during an argument. He was an active member of the H-SU Players Club and transferred to the University of Texas at Austin in 1947 as a history major and continued to be active in drama. One of his roommates there was the future actor L.Q. Jones. Parker graduated from UT in 1950 with a degree in history. He had been initiated into the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Having one year remaining on his GI Bill, he studied drama at the University of Southern California, where he pursued a master's degree in theater history.

Parker began his show-business career in summer 1951 when he had a $32-a-week job as an extra in the play Mister Roberts, although he is credited with the voice of Leslie, the chauffeur, in the 1950 film Harvey. Within months, he was on location with a minor part in Untamed Frontier with Joseph Cotten and Shelley Winters.

Parker became a contract player with Warner Bros., appearing in small roles in several films such as Springfield Rifle (1952), Island in the Sky, The Bounty Hunter and Battle Cry. In 1954, he appeared as Grat Dalton in the Jim Davis syndicated Western anthology series Stories of the Century in the episode "The Dalton Brothers".

In another 1954 appearance, Parker was cast as Curt Morrison, a cowboy/militia-marshal patrolling the land rush in the New Mexico Territory, in the episode "The Kickapoo Run" on the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days. Nancy Hale played his romantic interest, Bonnie Carter, whom Morrison meets again years later after the death of her husband. In the 1961 Death Valley Days episode "A Miracle at Whiskey Gulch", Parker portrayed the Reverend Joel H. Todd, who tries to instill Christian principles in a wild frontier town. Others in the episode were Eddie Firestone as Applejack Jim and George Kennedy, cast as Steamboat Sully, who engage in a brutal fistfight.

Fess Parker was nominated for best new personality Emmy in 1954, but lost to George Gobel. He was never nominated again, nor was his show Daniel Boone.

Parker married Marcella Belle Rinehart (1929–2019) on January 18, 1960. They had two children, Fess Elisha Parker III and Ashley Allen Rinehart, along with 11 grandchildren and a great-grandson.

In 1962, he starred in the title role of the TV series Mr Smith Goes to Washington, portraying the same idealistic character that James Stewart had played in the 1939 film. Parker took to the stage in 1963, in a traveling production of Oklahoma! as Curly. The movie roles he sought were elusive. In 1966, Parker starred in the movie Smoky, directed by George Sherman where he played the role of Clint Barkley, who finds a black stallion named Smoky a wild stallion who eventually becomes a wonderful cutting horse and the best friend an old cowboy could ever want.

Parker's Daniel Boone television series portraying another historic figure of America's frontier days began filming in 1964. Over its six years (1964 to 1970) as one of the highest-rated shows of its time, Parker was not only the star of the series, but also the co-producer and director of five of its most popular episodes.

Turning down the title role of McCloud, Parker retired from acting at the age of 49 after a sitcom pilot called The Fess Parker Show was broadcast on March 28, 1974, but was not subsequently picked up by the network.

In 1985, Parker briefly flirted with running in 1986 for the United States Senate as a Republican for the seat of incumbent Democrat Alan Cranston. He considered himself a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan.

In 2003, Parker received the Texas Cultural Trust's "Texas Medal of Arts Award", established only the year before.

For his work with Disney, Parker was honored in December 2004 with his own tribute window on a façade in the Frontierland section of Disneyland.

Parker died of natural causes on March 18, 2010, at his home in Santa Ynez, California, near the Fess Parker Winery.