[6][7] He sang "Wayfarin’ Stranger", a duet with pilot episode co-star Bonnie Bedelia, and later the theme song for the show, "Long Lonesome Highway",[8] which became a No.

[11] Parks admitted he could be "difficult on the set" and also said he objected to producers wanting to make the series more violent.

After the cancellation of Bronson, Parks didn't work in a major Hollywood production for several years, but he had regular small roles in independent or Canadian features throughout the 1970s, such as Between Friends (1973), although director Donald Shebib had trouble dealing with Parks, describing him as a "terrific actor in a lot of ways, but weird".

He appeared as Irish mob boss Tommy O'Shea in Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994), French-Canadian drug runner Jean Renault in the ABC television series Twin Peaks, Dr. Banyard in Deceiver (1997), Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), and Ambrose Bierce in From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000).

[14] He again reprised the role of Earl McGraw in both segments of the film Grindhouse (2007), making his fourth appearance as the Texas Ranger.

Parks played a villain in Kevin Smith's horror films Red State (2011) and Tusk (2014).

[21] He requested a full body burial at sea, which his wife attended alone following a public funeral held at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

Upon hearing the news, director Kevin Smith posted on his Instagram account "Michael was, and will likely forever remain, the best actor I've ever known.

[25] Titled Long Lonesome Highway, it covers his beginnings as an itinerant teenager hopping boxcars through being blacklisted in Hollywood, to his career resurgence at the hands of filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino.