Conlan Carter

Who is Conlan Carter?

Chester Conlan Carter is a former film and television actor best known for the role of "Doc", featured in sixty-six episodes of the Rick Jason and Vic Morrow ABC World War II television series Combat!. In 1964, Carter was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor" on the Combat! episode "The Hostages". From 1960-1962, Carter appeared as C.E. Carruthers, the assistant to the attorney Abraham Lincoln Jones, portrayed by James Whitmore, in ABC's legal drama, The Law and Mr. Jones.

Carter was born in Center Ridge, an unincorporated community in Conway County in north central Arkansas, but he was reared on a farm near Matthews in New Madrid County in the far southeastern "Boot" of Missouri. He graduated from Matthews High School and was the state champion in the pole vault in 1951-1952. He was also named to the all-state track team. From 1952-1954, he attended Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau on an athletic scholarship. He then served in the United States Air Force from 1954–1956 and acquired an interest in flying.

In 1956, he relocated to San Francisco, California, to study with Mara Alexander Gilbert of the Bay City Actor's Lab. For three years, he concentrated on musical comedy and appeared in more than ten productions before he relocated to North Hollywood. His first television appearances were in 1959-1960 on the Four Star westerns, Johnny Ringo with Don Durant, The Westerner with Brian Keith, and the parent program, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater. At the age of twenty-six, Carter acquired the secondary role on Four Star's The Law and Mr. Jones with Whitmore and Janet De Gore.