He was a teacher at Winfield Academy, a private boys' school in the fictional upstate New York community of Rosehill.
Henry offered Bruce a job at his paper company, and accepted it, feeling burned out from teaching at Winfield Academy.
Bruce had an affair with his secretary, a woman named Ginny Crandall (Barbara Barrie), who had been the wife of a teacher at Winfield Academy, and that caused Van to move out of the house and in with her stepson in his apartment.
A swindler named Guy Latimer tried to bilk Henry out a patent, and Bruce put an end to that scheme.
He was also a private investigator, but despite all his work and the amount of service to his community over the years, not to mention his affairs, his one true love was his wife, Vanessa.
When Van actually walked down the aisle, the next day, she was played by Audrey Peters, who stayed with the role until the show's end in 1980.
Since Peters had taken over right after Bartlett quit the show, and had no idea who the characters she was interacting with were, or even knew their names, she called everyone at the reception, "dear".