[3] A self-avowed "farm boy", Tucker began his performing career at age 14 at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, pushing the big wicker tourist chairs by day and singing "Throw Money" at night.

After his family moved to Washington, D.C., Tucker attracted the attention of Jimmy Lake, the owner of the Old Gaiety Burlesque Theater, by winning its Saturday night amateur contest on consecutive weeks.

In his own estimation, Tucker was in the mold of large "ugly guys" such as Wallace Beery, Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen, rather than a matinee idol.

Overcoming a feeling in Hollywood that fair hair did not photograph well, he quickly attained leading man status, starring in PRC's Emergency Landing (1941).

[5] Like many other movie actors at the time, Tucker enlisted in the United States Army during World War II; he earned a commission as a second lieutenant.

Tucker had a role in Republic's Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), as PFC Thomas, a Marine with a score to settle with John Wayne's Sergeant Stryker.

Back in the United States, he returned to Republic: San Antone (1953) with Rod Cameron; Flight Nurse (1953) and Jubilee Trail (1954) with Joan Leslie.

Tucker had a two-year stint on television playing the well-received role of a charter-boat captain in Bermuda in the series Crunch and Des from 1955 to 1956 with Sandy Kenyon.

Tucker showed a flair for light comedy under the direction of Morton DaCosta that had largely been unexplored in his roles in Westerns and science fiction films.

Tucker was cast as Professor Harold Hill in the national touring production of The Music Man in 1958 and played the role 2,008 times over the next five years, including a 56-week run at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago.

(Two of his Gunsmoke episodes feature Tucker in his cavalry uniform again, as the unconventional Sergeant Holly (1970), who in one scene "marries" and spends a hectic night with Miss Kitty.)

After the run of F Troop ended, Tucker returned to films in character roles like The Night They Raided Minsky's (1969), Barquero (1970), Chisum (1970), Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972), and Cancel My Reservation (1972).

[11] Tucker, who had battled lung cancer for more than a year, as well as having a series of minor illnesses, collapsed and was hospitalized, for the second time in a week, on his way to the ceremony for his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 21, 1986.

[4][12] He died at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital on October 25, 1986, a few months after the theatrical release of Thunder Run and Outtakes.