Cara Williams

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Cara Williams (born June 29, 1925, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American film and television actress.

Biography

Williams was born Bernice Kamiat. Her father was an Austrian immigrant, and her mother was the child of Romanian immigrants.^[1] She began her screen acting career in 1941, and was initially billed as Bernice Kay. Williams earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination in 1959 for The Defiant Ones.

She starred opposite Harry Morgan in the CBS situation comedy Pete and Gladys (1960–1962), and earned an Emmy Award nomination in 1962 for Best Actress in a Series. She later had her own CBS sitcom, The Cara Williams Show (1964–1965), with costars Frank Aletter, previously the star of Bringing Up Buddy on CBS, and Jack Sheldon, later star of the short-lived 1966 series, Run, Buddy, Run, also on CBS. Williams and Aletter played a married couple trying to keep their union secret because company policy did not permit employees to marry within the company. The series was created by Keefe Brasselle's Richelieu Productions, along with two other programs that season, The Reporter starring Harry Guardino and Gary Merrill and Paul Ford's sitcom The Baileys of Balboa.

In Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) she played a redheaded dancer who performed a notable number, declaring she did not like rock 'n' roll. She played James Cagney's girl friend in the musical comedy Never Steal Anything Small (1959) and even had a duet with Cagney.

During the early to mid-1960s, CBS executives groomed Williams to be the next Lucille Ball, but these plans never materialized. After the demise of her show, she did guest roles on other shows, briefly appearing as a regular on Valerie Harper's CBS series Rhoda.

Personal life

Williams married John Drew Barrymore (later the father of Drew) in 1952. They divorced in 1959. Their son, John Blyth Barrymore, is also an actor.

Select filmography

• In the Meantime, Darling (1944)
• Boomerang (1947)
• Monte Carlo Baby (1951)
• Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)
• The Helen Morgan Story (1957)
• The Defiant Ones (1958)
• Never Steal Anything Small (1959)
• The Man from the Diner's Club (1963)
• The White Buffalo (1977)

External links

• Cara Williams at the Internet Movie Database

References

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