Career
After a spell in New York, Napier moved to California. He acquired an agent and a union card (for a bit part in Mission: Impossible). His film debut came about by accident. A girlfriend took Napier along when she went to audition for Russ Meyer, who cast Napier as the male lead in Cherry, Harry & Raquel!. (He was one of the few actors from Meyer films to go on and have a significant career.) In addition to acting and helping with the cameras when setting up shots, he did stunts, make up and driving on the film. After the low budget Moonfire, he worked as a journalist and photographer for Overdrive magazine for a few years; a strike sent him back to Hollywood in 1975 where, at age 39, he was reduced to living in his car in the parking lot of Meyer's office with no money, work, or agent. He was summoned to Universal Studios to meet Alfred Hitchcock, who had just seen a print of Supervixens, and was given a one-year contract.
Napier became a prolific character actor, appearing regularly in TV series of the time, and a number of pilots. Frequently cast as a heavy, he often portrayed corrupt cops, soldiers, businessmen, and other authority figures. In 1977, he was cast as frontier scout Luther Sprague in the six-episode NBC western television series, The Oregon Trail. He appeared in three episodes of the 1980s hit TV series The A-Team as Col. Briggs. He also co-starred in two The Rockford Files episodes, and played Hammer in the series B.J. and the Bear in the 1970s. Napier as Wolfson Lucas was teamed with Rod Taylor again for the series Outlaws. He is known among Star Trek fans for appearing on both Star Trek: The Original Series episodes "The Way to Eden" as musically inclined space hippie Adam, and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Little Green Men" as General Denning. He also appeared in the pilot episode of Knight Rider in 1982.
Citizen's Band director Jonathan Demme was laudatory about Napier's abilities, and went on to cast him in several of his films including The Silence of the Lambs and, in what was Napier's favourite role of his career, a judge in Philadelphia. He played the bureaucratic CIA officer Marshall Murdock in Rambo: First Blood Part II. In the 1980 musical-comedy The Blues Brothers, he portrayed the choleric Tucker McElroy, "lead singer of and driver of the Winnebago" for "The Good Ol' Boys."
Napier was in many advertisements. He performed a great deal of voice-over work, including General Hardcastle in the DC Animated Universe series Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League, Roy in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Zed in Men in Black: The Series, the Sheriff in Squidbillies, and vocal effects for the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk following the death of Ted Cassidy in 1979. He also provided several guest voices for episodes of The Simpsons.
He had a small role during the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2008 as a barber who assaults and drives Larry David from his shop after David offends him. Napier appeared in the 2009 horror film Murder World alongside Scout Taylor-Compton. His last film role was in the 2009 comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard opposite Jeremy Piven and James Brolin.
Prior to his death in October 2011, Napier published a book about his life and experiences in Hollywood, titled Square Jaw and Big Heart.
