Background
Crawford was born Cleve Allen Richardson in Colfax, Washington.
Crawford was born Cleve Allen Richardson in Colfax, Washington.
He appeared in a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, called "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim", and in several Gunsmoke episodes. He had a key role in the 1975 film Night Moves, a crime thriller starring Gene Hackman, and played the mayor of San Francisco in 1976"s The Enforcer, the third Dirty Harry film featuring Clint Eastwood. In films from the 1940s, Crawford appeared in bit parts for many years before playing leads in several films in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
When he returned to the United States, he played supporting roles in several films but was more prolific on television in character roles, in scores of series such as State Trooper (in the episode "The Last Stage Robbery"), Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Combat!, The Fugitive, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Incredible Hulk, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Hogan"s Heroes, The Rockford Files and most notably as Sheriff Ep Bridges on Columbia Broadcasting System" The Waltons.
Crawford co-wrote the screenplay of the film The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), directed by Sam Peckinpah. Crawford died, at the age of ninety, from a stroke.