Clarence Williams, III
actor
Personal Information
Born August 21, 1939, in New York, NY; married Gloria Foster, an actress, November 1967, divorced.
Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Army, 101st Airborne Division.
Career
Stage actor, 1960-; artist in residence, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1966-67; starred in the television drama The Mod Squad, 1968-73; film actor, 1986-.
Life's Work
After a star turn on one of the most popular shows of the late 1960s, The Mod Squad, Clarence Williams III returned to the stage, and eventually landed roles in feature films. Over his long career, he has developed into an intense character actor. In films such as Purple Rain, 52 Pick-up, Deep Cover and Against the Wall, Williams has portrayed mysterious and often sinister characters.
From Stage to Small Screen
After a long career on the Broadway stage, Williams landed one of the hippest parts on late-1960's television. He played undercover cop Linc Hayes on the television series The Mod Squad, which ran from 1968 to 1973. Williams starred with fellow unknown actors Peggy Lipton and Michael Cole. In its day, The Mod Squad was an innovative show, one that redefined fashion, hairstyles, and language.
Most actors try to make the leap from television into film, but Williams returned to the stage after The Mod Squad went off the air. He told Entertainment Weekly that he turned down film offers for many years because he was not impressed by the roles available to African American actors. Williams had no interest in playing one-dimensional characters in action-movies, or "blaxploitation" films, as they were called. "They gave a lot of people the chance to work," he told Entertainment Weekly. "I just didn't want to do them." Instead of becoming a blaxploitation action-movie star, Williams co-starred on Broadway in Night and Day with Maggie Smith in 1979.
Finally, in 1984, a legitimate role presented itself to Williams in Prince's biographic film Purple Rain. Williams played the musician's tortured father. Once a very talented musician himself, the character becomes alcoholic and abusive to his wife and son, called The Kid, who was played by Prince.
Intense, Villainous Roles
Two years later, in the 1986 adaptation of novelist Elmore Leonard's book 52 Pick-Up, Williams starred opposite Roy Scheider and Ann-Margaret. Williams played a "spaced-out thug," according to the Entertainment Weekly's review of the film on video. But, compared to Scheider and Ann-Margaret's "cold fish" characters, Williams and the other supporting actors were "hot potatoes." Another critic from People agreed with Entertainment Weekly, remarking that some supposedly intense scenes between the stars seem "tired and bored," while only the villains, played by Williams and John Glover, "have any energy."
In 1994, Williams appeared in a cable television movie entitled Against the Wall. The film is based on a true story about a violent inmate revolt that occurred at New York's Attica prison in 1971. Thirty-two inmates and 11 guards who had been taken hostage died when law enforcement officials stormed the prison. Williams played one of the inmates who takes a young guard hostage. People called the violence in the film "unsparingly brutal," and noted that director John Frankenheimer "keeps the tension cranked up."
In 1995, Williams starred in the campy African American horror film, Tales from the Hood. He starred as the film's host, a ghoulish, dazed mortuary caretaker named Mr. Simms. Entertainment Weekly, which called the film a "black Twilight Zone," called Williams' hilarious character a "funkzombie Vincent Price."
In the 1997 made-for-TV movie George Wallace, Williams performed brilliantly. The two-part film was a biography of George Wallace, a conservative four-term governor of Alabama and former presidential candidate who was known for his segregationist beliefs. Based on the 1968 biography by Marshall Frady, the production received favorable reviews. Time magazine writer Joel Stein wrote that the mini-series, like its subject, "isn't afraid to give it to you straight, unpleasantness and all." Stein wrote that Williams did a "fine job," considering that he played what Stein called the film's "silliest" part. Williams played Archie, Wallace's African American servant who represents a combination of all of the African American people Wallace ever knew.
Williams started off the year 2000 with a role in the film Reindeer Games. The movie also featured two of Hollywood's hottest young stars, Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron. Williams played a small-time criminal who wants to make a big score. Reindeer Games also starred Gary Sinise and Dennis Farina. It marked the sixth time that Williams starred in a film directed by John Frankenheimer. Frankheimer also directed 52 Pick-up, George Wallace, and Against the Wall. In Reindeer Games, which is set in northern Michigan during the Christmas holidays, Williams and Sinise force a young ex-convict to help them rob a casino. The film's plot contains many unexpected twists and turns, and relies heavily on the element of surprise.
Williams has a tremendous work ethic, and is highly regarded by filmmakers because he is a talented and reliable actor. "Everybody's waiting for a pot of gold to drop out of the sky and not work for a living," he told Jet. "I work a great deal. People come to me because they know they can get a good performance and a big bang for their buck."
Awards
Theatre World award, and Antoinette Perry Award nomination for best supporting actor for Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, 1965; Image Award nomination, National Association for hte Advancement of Colored People for Millenium, 1996; Image Award nomination for best supporting actor in a motion picture in Hoodlum, 1997.
Further Reading
Books
- Kondek, Joshua, ed., Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, Volume 26, Gale Group, 2000.
- Mapp, Edward, ed., Directory of Blacks in the Performing Arts, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
- Entertainment Weekly, April 1, 1994, p. 37; June 2, 1995; May 31, 1996.
- Jet, February 28, 2000, p. 64.
- People, November 24, 1986, p. 10; March 28, 1994, p. 15.
- Time, August 25, 1997, p. 74.
- Additional information for this profile was obtained from "Clarence Williams III," Internet Movie Database, at http://www.imdb.com (May 13, 2000); and "The Mod Squad," E! Online, http://www.eonline.com (May 13, 2000).
— Brenna Sanchez
