When Roos co-produced "The Godfather Part II", he recommended Spradlin for the role of Pat Geary, a corrupt U.S. senator from Nevada, and Spradlin played a senator in the 1976 TV miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man Book II". In 1977, he guest-starred along with Ruth Gordon and Mariette Hartley in the Columbo episode, "Try and Catch Me." Among his film credits are "One on One" (1977) (as an authoritarian basketball coach) and "Apocalypse Now" (as General Corman, the somber officer who assigns Martin Sheen's character to the search mission). He played the head football coach B.A. Strother in "North Dallas Forty" (1979), and "Carolina Military Institute" commandant General Durrell in "The Lords of Discipline" (1983).