Donald Mounger Collier (October 17, 1928 – September 13, 2021) was an American actor best known for Western films and NBC television shows such as The High Chaparral, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Outlaws as Marshal Will Foreman.
After his naval service, Collier worked as an extra in a few films[2] before attending small Baptist institution Hardin–Simmons College in Abilene, Texas, on an athletic scholarship.
[2] He found favor with directors and producers because his ranch-hand background enabled him to do his own fighting and horseback riding and driving a wagon with a team of horses without the use of stunt doubles..[4] On television in several series, Collier portrayed ranch hand Sam Butler in The High Chaparral starring Leif Ericson, Cameron Mitchell, Henry Darrow, Mark Slade, Linda Cristal and Frank Silvera, set on the desert ranch in the old old Southwest and American frontier in the southern portion of the old Arizona Territory, near the U.S.-Mexican border in Apache Indian country,[5] deputy Will Foreman in Outlaws,[5]: 802 and William Tompkins in The Young Riders.
[4] In the 1970s, Collier also began making occasional television commercials, including one for Hubba Bubba bubble gum that had him portraying the amusing character, the 'Gum Fighter" for eight years.
[2] Later in his career, Collier narrated The Desert Speaks, a series of documentaries for the University of Arizona,[2] appeared at Western festivals, and presented the one-man stage performance Confessions of an Acting Cowboy.