Graves also played airline pilot Captain Clarence Oveur in the 1980 comedy film Airplane!

[7] In 1955, Graves joined the NBC television series Fury, as the rancher and adoptive single father, Jim Newton.

[7] In the storyline, Cobb is an American who arrives in Australia in the 1850s to establish the country's first stagecoach line, using a bullwhip rather than a gun to fight the crooks he encounters.

In 1967, Graves was recruited by Desilu Studios to replace Steven Hill as the lead actor on Mission: Impossible.

Graves portrayed the iconic character of Jim Phelps, the sometimes-gruff director of the Impossible Missions Force, for the six following seasons of the series.

[8] After the series ended in 1973, Graves played a cameo-type support role in the feature film Sidecar Racers in Australia which was released in 1975.

[9] He played opposite Robert Mitchum, Jan Michael Vincent, Deborah Winters and Ali MacGraw in what became in 1983, the second-most watched miniseries of all time (after Roots).

In the first of these (1968), Graves played a government agent (the Bureau of National Resources) who recruited civilians with special talents for secret missions.

The films that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 include SST: Death Flight, It Conquered the World, Beginning of the End,[15] and Parts: The Clonus Horror.

Graves himself parodied his Biography work in the film Men in Black II, hosting an exposé television show.

[17] Graves' final project was narrating the computer game epic Darkstar: The Interactive Movie,[18] released November 5, 2010.

[19] Controversially, Graves helped organize a Los Angeles city ban on gas-powered leaf blowers.

[22] On March 14, 2010, after returning from brunch with his family, Graves collapsed of a heart attack outside his Los Angeles home.