On the OTHER John Williams

The title of today’s post is meant to differentiate its subject from the motion picture composer, although this John Williams (Hugh Ernest Leo Williams, 1903-1983) had a famous classical musical connection, too — he appeared in a long running tv commercial for Columbia House Records hawking 120 Music Masterpieces.

Williams was one of Hollywood’s go-to Englishmen, with a crisp, formal (yet not forbidding) manner that bespoke discernment and ease. A well-groomed mustache made the sale. Surprisingly, he’d not been to university, having become a professional actor during his late teenage years. Originating from Chalfont St. Giles (about 40 miles outside London), he had already moved to the U.S. and begun acting on Broadway by age 20. His dozens of stage credits included the original stage adaptations of Dodsworth (1934) and Barchester Towers (1937), the premieres of S.N. Behrman’sNo Time for Comedy (1939) and Maxwell Anderson’sAnne of the Thousand Days (1948), a 1946 revival of Shaw’sPygmalion, and early appearances in J.M. Barrie’sPeter Pan and Alice Sit-By-the-Fire.

Williams’ most crucial stage performance was in the original Broadway production of Dial M for Murder (1952-54) for it led to his being cast in the same role (the Inspector) in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 screen version. Williams worked with Hitch on two other occasions, in The Paradine Case (1947) and To Catch a Thief (1955), and was cast in fewer than eight episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents between 1955 and 1959. He was also in the 1958 Hallmark Hall of Fame version of Dial M for Murder, and the distinctly Hitchcockesque Midnight Lace (1960). Billy Wilder was also a Williams’ fan, casting him in Sabrina (1954), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), although his role in the latter film wound up on the cutting room floor. As a Conan Doyle consolation prize, he had a role in a television production of The Hound of the Baskervilles two years later.

In the cockamamie bio-pic Harlow (1965) Williams played the head of a movie studio. (Was there ever a British head of an American movie studio? That’s certainly contrary to type, I must say). Rod Serling cast him better as William Shakespeare in a memorable episode of The Twilight Zone; he was also in two episodes of Night Gallery. Those of us of a certain age also remember him as “the other Mr. French” in a few episodes of Family Affair when Sebastian Cabot was down with pneumonia. And he was in that hokey episode of Columbo where the eccentric L.A. detective lieutenant solves a murder in the theatrical world while on vacation in London (Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman were the celebrity perps in that one).

Williams’ pleasant mien also made him in demand for light comedies, and he was in several semi-classics: Richard Quine’s version of George S. Kaufman’s The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), Frank Tashlin’s Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), Norman Taurog’sVisit to a Small Planet (1960 with Jerry Lewis) and Double Trouble (1967, with Elvis Presley), Henry Koster’s Dear Brigitte (1965, with Jimmy Stewart), The Last of the Secret Agents (1966) with Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, Jack Smight’sThe Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968), the all-star French farce A Flea in Her Ear (1968), and the Disney comedies No Deposit, No Return (1976) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).

A 1979 episode of Battlestar Gallactica was Williams’ final screen credit. Now in his late ’70s, a heart condition sidelined him at this point. He died four years later.