Passing up on baseball, Bosley pursued a law degree at De Paul University after a stint in the navy. Midway through college, he transferred to a radio school with the new goal of becoming a sports announcer. Unable to find work as a sports announcer, however, Bosley became a radio actor. In 1950, after two years of acting on the radio and in stock theater, he moved to New York.
From that point on, Bosley became one of the busiest actors in the business. He appeared on countless television shows, including "Route 66," "Dr. Kildare," "Mod Squad," and "Bewitched." He is best recalled as the quintessential Eisenhower-era dad on "Happy Days". But Tom Bosley had established himself as a Broadway star before TV beckoned.
Like most young actors, Bosley worked a variety of odd jobs to pay the rent, including hat-checker at a restaurant and doorman for Tavern-on-the-Green. He began his career on stage in his native Chicago at age 20, playing the father role in "Golden Boy". By the mid-1950s, Bosley was in New York, where he made his off-Broadway debut in "Thieves' Carnival" (1955). In 1958, after years of stage work, he was cast as the lead in the Broadway musical "Fiorello!" about the legendary New York City mayor. His performance was nothing less than stunning and he won a "grand slam" of New York theatrical awards, including top honors from the Tony Awards, the Drama Critics, and the Newspaper Guild and continued bringing down the house for two years with a production number in which he sang in numerous languages as LaGuardia working at Ellis Island.
He appeared in several other Broadway shows, including as the title character in "The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N" (1968). He returned to Broadway in 1994 as Belle's father in "Disney's Beauty and the Beast".
Bosley became a mainstay on the small screen beginning in 1955 as the Knave of Hearts in a NBC "Hallmark Hall of Fame" production of "Alice in Wonderland" and was memorable as Teddy Brewster, who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt, in the 1962 Hallmark/NBC TV version of "Arsenic and Old Lace". Bosley made dozens of episodic guest-starring appearances through the years, as well as appearing as a regular on more than 10 series, beginning with "That Was the Week That Was" (1964), a topical revue show. He supported Debbie Reynolds in her NBC series effort in 1969, was a Dean Martin regular during the 1971 season, Sandy Duncan's boss on her series in 1972, and provided the voice of the father in the syndicated animated sitcom "Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home" (1972-74).
His signature role of Howard Cunningham, the unabashed Ike-liking father of Richie (Ron Howard) who eventually learned to love The Fonz (Henry Winkler) as a surrogate son as well, came in 1974. Howard's bite was never as tough as his grumble and he was among the last of the touchstone American suburban dads on TV.
Bosley joined the cast of "Murder, She Wrote" (CBS 1984-88) in the recurring role of Amos Tucker, the downeast-accented sheriff who was never quite as smart as Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher when it came to solving the frequent murders in Cabot Cove. Bosley subsequently played Father Frank Dowling, a crime-solving priest, first in an NBC TV-movie/pilot and then in the series, "The Father Dowling Mysteries" (NBC, 1989; ABC 1990-91).
Bosley has also appeared in numerous TV-movies and dramas, beginning with "A Step Out of Line" (CBS, 1971). He was memorable as the sweatshop manager who loves his little daughter in "The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal" (NBC, 1979), and he played Ben Franklin in the syndicated miniseries "The Bastard" (1978) and its 1979 sequel, "The Rebels." He has appeared in more than one dozen feature films. Bosley's first role of note was in "Love With the Proper Stranger" (1963), as the pudgy restaurant owner who wants to marry Natalie Wood. He was the bickering, incarcerated General Pennypacker in "The Secret War of Harry Frigg" (1968) and the police lieutenant investigating the disappearance of a family in Bette Davis' last film, "Wicked Stepmother" (1989). Bosley has also appeared in numerous TV commercials, and does voice-overs for many others, including Hanna-Barbera's "Yogi's Gang" (1973).
