At the age of two, Majors was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Harvey and Mildred Yeary, and he moved with them to Middlesboro, Kentucky.

[1] He played in his first football game the following year, but suffered a severe back injury which left him paralyzed for two weeks and ruined his college athletic career.

[2] Majors landed his first, although uncredited, role in Strait-Jacket (1964), in a flashback sequence as Joan Crawford's cheating husband.

That same year, he was offered the chance to star in Midnight Cowboy (1969), but The Big Valley was renewed for another season and he was forced to decline the role (which later went to Jon Voight).

Jones, and joined the cast of The Virginian for its final season when the show was restructured as The Men from Shiloh featuring four alternating leads.

[4] In 1971, he landed the role of Arthur Hill's partner, Jess Brandon, on Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, which garnered critical acclaim during its three seasons on ABC.

Majors also made his directorial debut in 1975, on an episode called "One of Our Running Backs Is Missing" which co-starred professional football players such as Larry Csonka and Dick Butkus.

The studio in turn filed a lawsuit to force him to report to work due to stipulations within his existing contract that had not yet expired.

The television film Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident (1976, as Francis Gary Powers), the Viking film The Norseman (1978) co-starring Cornel Wilde, the horror thriller Killer Fish (1979), the drama Steel (1979), which he produced, co-starring Jennifer O'Neill and Art Carney, and the political thriller Agency (1980), starring Robert Mitchum.

Majors would invite several longtime friends, Linda Evans, Peter Breck, Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, to guest-star in various episodes.

He voiced the character of "Big" Mitch Baker in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

That same year, he played Grandpa Max in Ben 10: Race Against Time, and voiced a character on the APTN animated children's program Wapos Bay: The Series that was named "Steve from Austin".

Majors played Coach Ross on the CW Network television series The Game, which ran from October 1, 2006, to May 20, 2009.

Also in 2008, Majors played a member of the Minutemen (dedicated to preventing illegal border crossings) in season four of the Showtime series Weeds, where he recruits Kevin Nealon's character.

Majors reprised his role (voice only) as Col. Steve Austin in the "Bionic Woman" segment of the Robot Chicken season four episode "Love, Maurice" (2009).

[9] On February 1, 2013, it was announced that Majors would appear in a two-episode guest spot in season two of TNT's Dallas as Ken Richards, an old flame of Sue Ellen's.

Weatherly and Fawcett chatted briefly and she told him she was going to visit her mother and was taking "the midnight plane to Houston."

Although Majors and Fawcett were both successful by that time, Weatherly used them as "characters" in his song about a failed actress who leaves Los Angeles, and is followed by her boyfriend who cannot live without her.