[3] He made his film debut in White Heat starring James Cagney in 1949 and became a familiar face in motion pictures, appearing in Perfect Strangers (1950) with Ginger Rogers, Two Rode Together (1961) with James Stewart and Richard Widmark, 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962) with Tony Curtis, Johnny Tiger (1966) with Robert Taylor, and The Sand Pebbles (1966) with Steve McQueen.

[citation needed] He guest-starred on such television series as The Adventures of Kit Carson, Bonanza, The Invaders, The Brothers Brannagan (in the 1961 series finale "The Hunter and the Hunted"), The Tall Man with Clu Gulager, Stoney Burke, Daniel Boone with Fess Parker, Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West S3 E14 as Garrison in "The Night of the Iron Fist" (1967) , Empire, Dundee and the Culhane, Baa Baa Black Sheep, How the West was Won (aka The Macahans), The Untouchables with Robert Stack, and the 1976 western Sara.

In the 1961–62 season Rainey co-starred with Robert Young in the CBS series Window on Main Street, in which he portrayed newspaper editor Lloyd Ramsey.

[5] Between 1962 and 1965 Rainey made four guest appearances on the CBS courtroom series Perry Mason, beginning with the role of Russell Durham in "The Case of the Unsuitable Uncle."

[citation needed] Ford Rainey was a bachelor until the age of 46, when, in 1954, he married Sheila Hayden and settled in New York City, where sons Robert and James were born.

[citation needed] Rainey remained in Malibu with his wife while he acted and enjoyed hobbies such as beekeeping and bird breeding until his death on July 25, 2005, of a stroke, at the age of 96.

[citation needed] In May 2012, Ford's 54-year-old chiropractor son Robert Rainey was found murdered in his Los Angeles, California office.