Standing 6'2" and weighing 215 pounds, Johnson had an impressive physique that made him in demand as a character actor and bit player.

[2] He was also an entrepreneur, founding his own studio, Lincoln Motion Picture Company, in 1916 in Omaha, Nebraska, with his younger brother George Perry Johnson.

However, he reluctantly resigned as president in 1920 because he could no longer continue his double business life, maintaining a demanding career in Hollywood films while trying to run a studio.

In the 1920s, Johnson was a very busy character actor, appearing in silent films such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) with Rudolph Valentino, Cecil B. DeMille's original The Ten Commandments (1923), The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Dante's Inferno (1924) and When a Man Loves (1927).

One of his later films was John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), in which he played Native American Chief Red Shirt.