Deal with Williams, a long-time character actor and star of the well-loved cult films Deep Rising and Useless Warmth, has died at 71. Based on a report by way of Individuals Journal, the actor died in a tragic motorbike accident. His agent, Barry McPherson, informed the journal, “He was killed this afternoon. He was making a left or a proper and a automobile minimize him off,” McPherson stated, including, “I’m simply devastated. He was the nicest man. He was so proficient.”
Williams had a protracted, legendary profession on the silver display. He first broke out within the late seventies in films like The Eagle Has Landed earlier than incomes a Golden Globe nomination for the movie adaptation of Hair. He had maybe his greatest position in 1981, taking part in the lead in Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the Metropolis (a favourite of ours right here at JoBlo), incomes a Golden Globe nomination. Within the movie, he performed a previously crooked cop who turns into an informer. It ought to have led to Williams changing into a star on the extent of Al Pacino or Robert De Niro, nevertheless it by no means fairly occurred. Nevertheless, he did star reverse the latter in a small position in Sergio Leone’s As soon as Upon a Time in America.
Williams additionally starred in a number of well-received style movies, all of which we’ve coated extensively right here, together with Useless Warmth, 1998’s Deep Rising, and a slew of sequels to the 1996 film The Substitute, the place he changed Tom Berenger within the lead position. He additionally memorably chewed the surroundings because the baddie Xander Drax in The Phantom, however had his largest success on the small display, the place he was the lead on Everwood for 4 seasons. He not too long ago had a task in David Simon’s We Personal this Metropolis for HBO, and a long-running recurring position on the Tom Selleck present Blue Bloods.
Williams was often called one of many nicest guys in Hollywood. When researching Useless Warmth for The Greatest Film You By no means Noticed, I spoke to an outdated colleague of his, Patrick Learn Johnson, who labored as a director on the second unit (and directed the wonderful 5-25-77). He associated the next anecdote to me by way of electronic mail:
Deal with had been a fixed-wing pilot for a few years, and, had not too long ago develop into a helicopter pilot, as properly. We’d talked about his adventures a number of occasions on set. And I’d expressed nice curiosity in becoming a member of him on any flight he may make obtainable. The issue was, Deal with was banned, by his contract, from flying whereas making the movie. However he saved speaking about how a lot he wanted to “Go up”… And the way it was killing him to not be capable to…
The “Butcher Store Scene” had been looming for weeks. The director, Mark Goldblatt, was not on time, by way of no fault of his personal, and was terrified that the studio was going to chop the scene, so as to preserve him on-schedule and on-budget. So, David Helpern and Michael Meltzer, who’d employed me, requested Mark if he could be prepared to “mortgage” the lead actors, Deal with Williams, Joe Piscopo, Key Luke, and Lindsay Value, to ME— in order that I might act as a de facto Second Unit Director and shoot a First Unit scene, in a single day, with a skeleton crew, to ensure the scene ended up within the movie. To his credit score, Mark agreed, and I used to be immediately in control of the entire sequence.
We shot from like 7pm til possibly 6am the following morning. And whereas I’d spent the entire evening attacking Deal with with every part from an enormous rubber steer carcass, to an precise LIVER, we had a lot enjoyable doing it, that once we wrapped, Deal with wiped off the pretend blood and slime and REAL LIVER JUICE and stated— “JOHNSON! 8 A.M.! VAN NUYS AIRPORT! WE’RE GOIN’ UP!”
So, I present up at 8am, at Van Nuys Airport, and there’s Deal with, pre-flighting this tiny whirlybird, and he arms me a headset and factors me to the passenger seat, and jumps within the pilot’s seat, and really… VERY… meticulously goes by way of a guidelines. He asks for clearance from the tower, and I’m considering— Yeah— HERE we go… The minute they provide him clearance, we’re blasting off— I hear the tower give clearance— and we oh-so-slowly… ever-so-cautiously… ascend… And we taxi, SLOOOOOOWLY, like completely cheap pilots, to our departure level… And I’m considering… “Actually?”
And Deal with gently will increase our elevate… and we ascend, about as quick as a misplaced helium balloon, into the smoggy sky above the San Fernando Valley…
And, reaching some form of normal visitors altitude, we then flew North by Northwest… For what appeared like half an hour. Straight and degree… Secure and sound… And I saved considering… “REALLY???” You went to all the difficulty and COST of studying the complexities of helicopter piloting… for THIS?
And simply as I used to be shaking my interior head, Deal with immediately pointed down towards an approaching canyon we’d simply overtaken, having left “managed airspace” and yelled— “LOOK! ENEMY TROOPS!!” And he slammed the stick ahead and threw us right into a dive, the likes of which I’ll always remember, and proceeded to Apocalypse Now the shit out the following ten minutes of our flight! And, the entire time, I’m SCREAMING and LAUGHING (principally SCREAMING) and Deal with’s having the time of his life after which, simply as quickly because it started, we handed again into managed airspace, and immediately we had been again to “NORMAL” flight.
Certainly Williams was one of many greats, and he might be missed.
