A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Abbott attended Fordham University in New York City, and later studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.

[3] He made more than one hundred guest appearances on various television series from 1952 to 1995, including NBC's Justice about the Legal Aid Society of New York and The Eleventh Hour, a medical drama about psychiatry.

He guest starred on Jack Lord's ABC series, Stoney Burke, and in Dennis Weaver's NBC sitcom, Kentucky Jones, in the episode "The Music Kids Make".

Abbott is best remembered as Assistant Director Arthur Ward on the ABC series, The F.B.I., with Efrem Zimbalist Jr., in the starring role as Inspector Lewis Erskine.

Abbott died in 1998 of cancer in Tarzana, California, aged 73, and is interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.