Carey's more notable big-screen credits included a co-starring role with John Wayne in Ford's 1948 outlaw film "3 Godfathers," the role of a young calvary officer in Ford's 1949 western "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," also with Wayne, and a turn decades later in a saloon scene in the 1990 sci-fi comedy "Back to the Future Part III." In all, he made 11 movie appearances with Wayne.
Among other Ford-directed films in which Carey appeared were "The Searchers" (1956), "Wagon Master" (1950) and "Rio Grande" (1950). In addition to a prodigious movie career that encompassed more than 90 films, Carey was a fixture on television during an era when westerns proliferated on the small screen, popping up in various character roles on such prime-time hits as "Bonanza," "Gunsmoke" and "Wagon Train" in the 1960s and 1970s.
In the 1950s, he had a recurring role in "The Adventures of Spin and Marty," a series of TV shorts that aired as part of "The Mickey Mouse Club." Carey was born in 1921, the son of silent film star Harry Carey and his wife, Olive, who also was an actress. The young Carey was raised among cattle and horses on his parents' 1,000-acre (405 hectares) ranch in California's Santa Clarita Valley, north of Los Angeles, and he earned the nickname "Dobe" because his hair colour was the hue of the ranch's reddish adobe clay. Even late in life, he went by that nickname.