[2] When an injury short-circuited his budding athletic career, and a switch to baseball at Texas State University was stymied due to insufficient semester hours, Bradford, who had long admired the work of actors Marlon Brando and James Dean, finally decided to seriously pursue a long-contemplated career in acting.
[2] Supporting himself by waiting tables, Bradford studied acting,[4] first with Frank Corsaro,[5] and finally, in 1962, was admitted to the Actors Studio, where he studied for two years,[4] leading to roles in Studio productions such as Mother Courage (1963), June Havoc's Marathon '33 (1963), and Blues for Mister Charlie (1964).
Hotchner's A Short, Happy Life (1961),[5] an ostensibly Broadway-bound show which folded out of town.
[4] This work, in turn, attracted the attention of media impresario Lew Grade, who brought Bradford to Great Britain in 1967 for Man in a Suitcase.
Bradford appeared in the 1989 film Heart of Dixie and had notable turns in Costa-Gavras' Missing (1982), The Mean Season (1985) and The Crossing Guard (1995).