Treat Williams

Richard Treat Williams Jr. (December 1, 1951 – June 12, 2023) was an American actor, whose career on stage and in film and television spanned five decades. He received many accolades for his work, including nominations for three Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and an Independent Spirit Award.

Williams began his career on Broadway, portraying Danny Zuko in the original run of Grease (1972). After supporting roles in the films The Ritz and The Eagle Has Landed (both 1976), he rose to fame with starring roles in Miloš Forman's film version of the musical Hair and in Steven Spielberg's historical comedy 1941, both released in 1979. He received further acclaim for his performance in the Sidney Lumet crime drama Prince of the City (1981).

He appeared in many other films throughout his career, both in leading and supporting roles, including Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Flashpoint (1984), Smooth Talk (1985), The Men's Club (1986), Dead Heat (1988), The Phantom (1996), The Devil's Own (1997), Deep Rising (1998), the Substitute franchise (1998–2001), The Deep End of the Ocean (1999), Miss Congeniality 2 (2005), 127 Hours (2010) and Daily Wire’s Run Hide Fight (2020). Among his television roles, he starred as Dr. Andy Brown on the drama series Everwood (2002–2006), for which he received a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actor. Subsequent television work included White Collar (2012–2013), Chicago Fire (2013–2018), and Blue Bloods (2016–2023). He also starred as Mick O'Brien on the Hallmark series Chesapeake Shores (2016–2022) and as Bill Paley in the FX miniseries Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024), the latter being his final appearance on screen.

Throughout his career, Williams returned to the Broadway stage, appearing in productions of Over Here! (1974), Once in a Lifetime (1978), The Pirates of Penzance (1981), Love Letters (1989), and Follies (2001).

Early life and education

Williams was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on December 1, 1951, the son of Marian (née Andrew), an antiques dealer, and Richard Norman Williams, a corporate executive. He moved with his family to Rowayton, Connecticut, when he was three. His maternal great-great-great-grandfather was William Henry Barnum, a U.S. senator from Connecticut and third cousin of the showman P. T. Barnum. Williams was a distant relative of both Robert Treat Paine—a signatory to the Declaration of Independence—and Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States.

Williams played football in high school and college. He graduated from the Kent School in Connecticut and Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As a teenager, he acted in high school and local theatre productions, and began to think seriously about an acting career during his first year of college: "I loved football very much, but I didn't think you could be a jock and be in the theatre company at the same time … I started to get serious about learning as much as possible about the craft of acting in my freshman year." At one point, he was performing in three college shows simultaneously: "a comedy, a Shakespeare and a musical".

Career

1972–1979: Stage work and film breakthrough

Williams launched his professional acting career in musical theatre; He starred as Utah in the Sherman Brothers' musical Over Here!. He then starred in Grease on Broadway in the lead role of Danny Zuko for three years, later saying of the experience, "I had grown up learning all of the songs from West Side Story, so I was aware of what a big deal 'Broadway' was. When I got my first little dressing room at the Royale Theatre, [I] thought, 'I've arrived. I'm here. This is fantastic!'".

In 1975, Williams made his feature film debut with a supporting role in the thriller Deadly Hero. He received positive notices the following year for his portrayal of Michael Brick—a squeaky-voiced private detective—in The Ritz, a farcical comedy based on the play of the same name, and next appeared in a small part in the British war film The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Williams came to worldwide attention in 1979 when he starred as George Berger—a leading member of a gang of flower children—in the Miloš Forman film Hair, based on the 1967 musical. Writing for the Sioux City Journal, critic Bob Thomas called it "a rare flight of creative imagination that widens the dimensions of the movie musical" and believed that Williams' performance "could not be better". In her mixed review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "As his name might indicate, Treat Williams is one of the better things Hair has to offer … [he is] is the only one of the players who really suggests the spirit of euphoria upon which the original [stage production] meant to capitalize". Williams' performance earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. His second film appearance of 1979 was the poorly reviewed Steven Spielberg war comedy 1941, in which he played Corporal Chuck Sitarski.

1980s roles

Throughout the next decade, Williams appeared in a variety of supporting and leading film roles, such as the adventure drama The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981), in which he played the titular aircraft hijacker; the Sergio Leone crime epic Once Upon A Time In America (1984); action-thriller Flashpoint (1984); Peter Medak's The Men's Club (1986); and the cult horror-comedy Dead Heat (1988). His portrayal of Daniel Ciello—in Sidney Lumet's 1981 neo-noir crime drama Prince of the City—brought Williams his second Golden Globe nomination and some of the strongest reviews of his career, with Roger Ebert saying of his "demanding and gruelling" performance, "Williams is almost always onscreen, and almost always in situations of extreme stress, fatigue, and emotional turmoil. We see him coming apart before our eyes". In a retrospective review of the film published by Empire in 2000, Simon Braud wrote:

It's doubtful whether a better performance was committed to celluloid in 1981 than Treat Williams' portrayal of the tortured Danny Ciello. In a staggering feat of acting prowess, Williams essays a fundamentally good, yet deeply flawed, human being disintegrating under intolerable pressure with rare courage and intensity.

Williams starred as Stanley Kowalski in the 1984 television adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, earning his third Golden Globe nomination, and was nominated for the 1985 Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his portrayal of Arnold Friend in that year's Smooth Talk. In her review of Talk for The Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, "The [film's] mood grows progressively darker as Treat Williams, playing a trashy dreamboat, drives up in his LeMans convertible … Matching Dern in her stunning performance, Williams is in his best role since Prince of the City".

1990s–2006: Film, theatre, and Everwood

Between 1993 and 1994, Williams starred as cynical divorce attorney Jack Harold on the CBS sitcom Good Advice, which ran for two seasons and was unfavorably reviewed by critics, though some were complimentary of Williams' performance. His film credits throughout the mid-late 1990s included Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), Mulholland Falls (1996), The Devil's Own (1997), cult action-horror Deep Rising (1998), and The Deep End of the Ocean (1999). In 1996, he co-starred in the big-budget comic book adaptation The Phantom, with his character—villainous Xander Drax—trying his utmost to take over the world and kill the titular superhero. The film received mixed reviews, but many critics were impressed by the visuals and performances. Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert said he found the film "smashingly entertaining", adding, "Williams [is] implacably evil … and also slick and oily in the best pulp tradition". That same year, his "messianic" work in The Late Shift, an HBO television film in which he portrayed real-life talent agent Michael Ovitz, was roundly praised by critics and earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor.