Elam made multiple guest-star appearances in many popular Western television series in the 1950s and 1960s, including Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Lawman, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Have Gun – Will Travel, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, The Rebel, F Troop, “Tales of Wells Fargo” and Rawhide. In 1961, he played a slightly crazed bus Passenger on The Twilight Zone episode "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"