A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Abbott was a secondary lead in several films of the 1950s and 1960s, including Miracle of the White Stallions (1963). He made more than one hundred guest appearances on various television series from 1952–1995, including NBC’s Justice about the Legal Aid Society of New York and The Eleventh Hour, a medical drama about psychiatry. He appeared on the CBS anthology series Appointment with Adventure and The Lloyd Bridges Show. He made two guest appearances on Perry Mason: in 1961 he played journalist Edmond Aitken in “The Case of the Envious Editor,” and in 1965 he played Harry Grant in “The Case of the Wrongful Writ.” 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. He is interred at the Roman Catholic San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.