Edward Faulkner, Actor in John Wayne and Elvis Presley Films, Dies at 93

Edward Faulkner, the familiar character actor who received a career jump start from director Andrew V. McLaglen en route to appearing in McLintock!, Rio Lobo, The Green Berets and three other films with John Wayne, has died. He was 93.

Faulkner died Aug. 26 of natural causes at a health care facility in Vista, California, his daughter Leslie Wadsworth told The Hollywood Reporter.

A strapping 6-foot-3, the amiable Kentucky native put his horse-riding skills to the test on several TV Westerns, including Have Gun — Will Travel (13 episodes from 1958-62); Gunsmoke (six episodes from 1959-72); Rawhide (seven episodes from 1959-64); Bonanza (three episodes from 1961-66) and The Virginian (11 episodes from 1963-70).

He made his big-screen debut in G.I. Blues (1960), then portrayed fitness instructor Brad Bentley in another Elvis Presley movie, Tickle Me (1965).

Faulkner worked alongside Wayne in McLintock! (1963), The Green Berets (1968), Hellfighters (1968), The Undefeated (1969), Rio Lobo (1970) and Chisum (1970). All but two of those movies were directed by McLaglen.

Onscreen, he said in a 2019 interview, he “never won a fight … I was always the bad guy.”

The youngest of two children, Fielden Edward Faulkner II was born on a Leap Day — Feb. 29, 1932 — in Lexington, Kentucky. His father owned a building supply company, and his mother, Ferie June, was a music teacher.

He and a friend partnered in a comedy song-and-dance act while at Henry Clay High School, and he attended the University of Virginia and the University of Kentucky, where he acted in plays before graduating in 1954.

After two years as a fighter pilot with the U.S. Air Force, Faulkner moved to Los Angeles in 1958 to pursue acting. He was introduced to McLaglen, then a staff director at CBS, and quickly put into an episode of Have Gun — Will Travel, starring Richard Boone. (He got the going day rate — $80.)

McLaglen also directed him on TV on Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Everglades!, Wagon Train and The Lieutenant and in such other films as The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1961), Shenandoah (1965), The Ballad of Josie (1967) and Something Big (1971).

Faulkner said he played chess hundreds of times with Wayne — “I occasionally let him win,” he said with a laugh — and they once kept a flight idling at the gate, as the plane’s captain was reluctant to interrupt their game.

Plus, after spotting Faulkner’s three daughters, Jan, Barbara and Leslie, on the sidelines during filming of The Undefeated in Mexico, Wayne yelled for wardrobe and put the young girls in the movie.

When he heard about The Green Berets, Faulkner sent a note to Wayne, he told host Rob Word in 2015, writing: “Like yourself, I’ve worn a Stetson long enough. Perhaps a change of hats, maybe a beret.”

A week or so later, word got out he was being cast in the war film, where he would portray Capt. MacDaniel.

Faulkner’s résumé also included the features How to Murder Your Wife (1965), The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966), Nobody’s Perfect (1968), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), Hang Your Hat on the Wind (1969) and The Man (1972) and the TV shows Dragnet, Lassie, Gilligan’s Island, Mod Squad, The Fugitive, It Takes a Thief, Cannon, Adam-12 and The Six Million Dollar Man.

In 1976, Faulkner took a break from acting and for the next dozen or so years worked for a company that leased cargo containers to the marine transportation industry and owned and operated hotels worldwide.

In addition to his daughters, survivors include his son, Edward III, and his grandchildren, Tyler, Wyatt, Steven, Olivia and Brooke.

His high-school sweetheart and wife of nearly 60 years, Barbara — they starred together in plays in high school and in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in college — died in May 2013.

“Offscreen, Faulkner never lost his boyhood love of magic, delighting friends and family with sleight-of-hand and illusions throughout his life,” his family noted. “Colleagues and loved ones alike remembered him for his kindness and genuine warmth — qualities that defined him as much as his body of work.”

Rhett Bartlett contributed to this report.