 After appearing in two plays, he performed his first stage lead there at age eight in "The Strawberry Circle".His early television commercials included appearing during "Space Patrol" (1950s series) to eat a bowl of "Chex", one of the show's sponsors, and "The Lone Ranger", in which he and Clayton Moore (the original television Lone Ranger), both on horseback, promoted the goodness of Cheerios breakfast cereal.