Hal Williams, the actor known for his role as friendly neighborhood cop Smitty Sanford and Son And as Marla Gibbs’ ailing husband in another popular NBC sitcom, 227He died. He was 91 years old.
Williams died of natural causes Wednesday morning at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., his manager, Zana Portlock Houston, said. TMZ. He has been having some health problems lately.
The Ohio native also played the tough and sympathetic drill sergeant played by Goldie Hawn in the box office hit directed by Howard Zieff. Private Benjamin (1980), then continued the role for three seasons on the 1981-1983 CBS sitcom starring Lorna Patterson.
He played Rhodey, Sinbad’s father, in the 1993-1994 Fox comedy series Sinbad Show It appeared on CBS And Tunisia Several times over the years with Harley Foster, a lumber mill worker who turns out to have escaped from prison after being wrongly imprisoned for killing a man in self-defense. (He eventually received a presidential pardon from Franklin Roosevelt.)
on 227Williams played Lester Jenkins, who owns his own construction company to support his busy wife Mary (Gibbs) and their hard-working daughter Brenda (Regina King). The comedy, from Embassy Television’s Norman Lear, was set in an apartment building in Washington, D.C. and ran for five seasons (1985-1990).
Williams’ big acting break came in 1972 when he was hired to play Officer Smith Sanford and Sonstarring Redd Foxx and Diamond Wilson as Watts junk dealers. (Lear had a hand in that series, too.) Smitty walked the beat with Officer “Swanny” Swanhauser (Noam Pitlyk) for six episodes, then partnered with Officer “Hobie” Hopkins (Howard Platt) the rest of the way.
“The whole concept of how [Hoppy] He struggles hard to be aware of black culture, vernacular, everything [was very popular with viewers]”A lot of times the writers will tell us where we fit into the episode and say, ‘Go away and think of some slang,'” Williams noted. Hence the “hammer shank” and “black-eyed rice”: pork shank and black-eyed peas. “Immediately” comes from “on the right.” Howard was a master at subverting the slang.
While working on Sanford and Son During the day, Williams kept his job on the night shift at the Los Angeles Post Office. “I didn’t feel financially able to give up my regular job until after my children went to school,” he said in a 1987 interview.
Hallroy Candice Williams was born on December 14, 1934 in Columbus, Ohio. He worked as an officer in a juvenile correctional facility and in children’s family services before deciding in 1968 that he was ready for a change.
“I sat down after my divorce and said, ‘What do I really want to do before the Maker comes and gets me?’ “It was about acting,” said Williams, who has done some community theater work. “So I decided to drive to California in 48 hours.”
He has auditioned for roles around his shifts at LAX and in California Youth Authority and has landed television offers in such TV shows as Dan August, That girl and cannon.
Williams is out Sanford and Son In 1975, he played prisoner Lester DeMott in a new ABC comedy series. on the rocks. That series, like Sanford and Son The series, based on a British comedy, did well in the ratings in its only season, but was canceled because viewers wrote letters to the network complaining that it made prison “seem too fun,” he said.
He returned to Sanford and Son in 1976 and played Smitty again in the 1980–81 sequel Sanford.
Williams and Gibbs first worked together on a 1977 episode of the CBS show. The Jeffersons – She starred as the feisty maid Florence in that show, of course – when she asked him to join her on stage in 227a play written by Christine Huston, who graduated from Lear’s writing program.
“the [stage version] “It was darker and earthier and too real to show on TV without fundamental changes,” he recalls. “I was a lecherous flirt in the play and was having an affair with the vamp upstairs.”
Then-NBC president Brandon Tartikoff and Lear came to see it and recognized its potential as a sitcom, but they wanted Mary to be a single woman and Lester to be killed off. Gibbs would have none of it.
“Marla didn’t want to [her character] “Being a black woman in the ghetto struggling to raise children,” he said.
Williams has worked continuously over the past decades, appearing in episodes of television series Harry O, Good times, Hill Street Blues, Magnum, P, Night court, Los Angeles Law, Roots: The Next Generation, Suddenly Susan, Parks and recreation, View drawing of the black lady and Mr. Mayor And in movies including Hardcore (1979), Rising (1990) and Guess who (2005).
He was married and divorced twice. Survivors include his three children.
“I’ve been a straight man for a long time,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me, because all I ever aspired to was to be a working actor. I’ve been very lucky. Most of the shows I’ve been in have been successful.”
