Career
Bateman"s first television appearance was as "Cousin Jeff Martin" in the 1958 episode "Black Fire" of the American Broadcasting Company/Warner Brothers western series Maverick, starring James Garner. He soon appeared on American Broadcasting Company"s Lawman, Lee Marvin"s National Broadcasting Company crime drama M Squad, and Jim Davis" syndicated adventure series, Rescue 8. Bateman was cast as "Hess" in Columbia Broadcasting System"s "Incident of a Burst of Evil" episode of the western series Rawhide.
He also guest starred as a young engineer in the episode "The Tree" of Columbia Broadcasting System"s Lassie, as well as two episodes of Perry Mason: Roy Dowson in "The Case of the Bashful Burro" in 1960, and defendant and title character Jeff Bronson in the 1961 episode, "The Case of the Guilty Clients."
Bateman co-starred as Detective George Peters in the first thirteen episodes of a 1959-1961 syndicated crime drama, Manhunt, starring with Victor Jory.
Then, during the 1960-1961 season, he played the dual role of twin brothers, Rick January, Doctor of Medicine, and Marshal Ben January, in the syndicated western series Two Faces West, set in Gunnison, Colorado. His co-stars were Francis De Sales and Joyce Meadows.
After Two Faces West concluded its thirty-nine episodes, Bateman guest starred on American Broadcasting Company"s Hawaiian Eye and Ben Casey, National Broadcasting Company"s The Virginian, Temple Houston, Bonanza, and Daniel Boone, and Columbia Broadcasting System"s The Jack Benny Program, The Munsters, and Hazel. Bateman was cast as Jim Brand, a deputy sheriff in Washoe County (Reno), Nevada, in the 1965 episode "The Wild West"s Biggest Train Holdup" of the syndicated western series, Death Valley Days.
In the story line, deputy Brand places a locked chain on a Central Pacific Railroad engine until the company agrees to pay its tax assessment.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he appeared in such sitcoms as My Three Sons, The Governor and Josip Juraj, Get Smart, Mayberry, Rural Free Delivery, and Love, American Style. From 1968-1972, he appeared four times on American Broadcasting Company"s crime drama The Federal Bureau of Investigation, starring Efrem Zimbalist, Junior. He appeared six times on Columbia Broadcasting System"s detective series Cannon, starring William Conrad, and twice on Mission: Impossible with Peter Graves.
He also appeared twice on Mannix, starring Mike Connors and later guest starred three times on Barnaby Jones, starring Buddy Ebsen.
Bateman"s first venture into soap operas was in 1980, when he joined the cast of National Broadcasting Company"s Days of Our Lives as Maxwell Jarvis, but he left the program after a year. Thereafter, he joined the cast of Santa Barbara, in which he appeared as Community College Capwell between 1984 and 1986.
In 1985, he appeared as a military officer in the Columbia Broadcasting System miniseries, Robert Kennedy & His Times, with Brad Davis in the title role. From 1988 to 1991, he appeared twice as two different Texas state senators on Dallas.
His most recent television appearance was in 1991 in an episode of The Trials of Rosie O"Neill.