Van Williams
Encyclopedia
Van Zandt Williams is a former actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 best known for his television role as Britt Reid/the Green Hornet
Green Hornet
Green Hornet may refer to:* The Green Hornet, a fictional character created by Fran Striker for the 1930s radio program and adapted into several media versions...

. He teamed for one season with the late Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 as his partner
Partner
A partner is:*A friend who shares a common interest or participates in achieving a common goal*A Significant other in an intimate relationship*A member of a partnership*A business partner...

 Kato
Kato (The Green Hornet)
Kato is a fictional character from The Green Hornet series. This character has also appeared with the Green Hornet in film, television, book and comic book versions. Kato was the Hornet's assistant and has been played by a number of actors...

, in the television series The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet (TV series)
The Green Hornet is a television show on the ABC US television network. It aired for the 1966–1967 TV season, and starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet/Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato.- Episodes:...

, broadcast on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 during the 1966-67 season.

Williams was also known for his earlier leading role as Kenny Madison in both Warner Bros. television detective series Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat is a private detective series which aired on the ABC network from 1959-1960 and featured Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun, Richard Long as Rex Randolph, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Arlene Howell as Melody Lee Mercer, the secretary at the New Orleans detective agency in which...

 (1959) and its sequel Surfside Six (1960).

Life and career

A diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...

 instructor in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

 in 1956, Williams was discovered there in 1957 by producer Mike Todd
Mike Todd
Michael Todd was an American theatre and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture...

, who urged him to come to Hollywood to try his hand at acting. Todd, one of the husbands of Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

, died in a plane crash, but Williams took vocal and acting lessons and was signed to a contract by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 in 1959. His big break came as costar of the ABC television series Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat is a private detective series which aired on the ABC network from 1959-1960 and featured Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun, Richard Long as Rex Randolph, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Arlene Howell as Melody Lee Mercer, the secretary at the New Orleans detective agency in which...

, set in New Orleans. The program aired during the 1959-1960 season; his costars were Andrew Duggan
Andrew Duggan
-Career:During World War II, Duggan was in the 40th Special Services Company, led by actor Melvyn Douglas in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His contact with Douglas later led to his performing with Lucille Ball in the play Dreamgirl. He developed a friendship with Broadway...

 and Richard Long
Richard Long (actor)
Richard Long was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several ABC television series, including The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor and Bourbon Street Beat.-Early life:...

. Williams later worked in a General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

 production with Ronald W. Reagan, and his Bourbon Street Beat character, Kenny Madison, was recycled into the Surfside 6
Surfside 6
Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered around a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison ; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...

 television series in exactly the same time slot, with Troy Donahue
Troy Donahue
Troy Donahue was an American actor, who was active between the late 1950s and late 1990s.-Life and career:...

. Williams starred in a television pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

 called The Leathernecks that was shown as an episode of The Gallant Men
The Gallant Men
The Gallant Men is a 1962-1963 ABC television series which depicted an infantry company of American soldiers fighting their way through Italy in World War II.-Description:...

.

Williams also appeared in the film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s Tall Story
Tall Story
Tall Story is a 1960 American sports comedy film directed by Joshua Logan and starring Anthony Perkins and Jane Fonda. Future star Robert Redford made his big-screen debut as a basketball player....

 (1960) and The Caretakers
The Caretakers
The Caretakers is a 1963 United Artists film drama starring Joan Crawford, Robert Stack, Polly Bergen and Janis Paige in a story about a mental hospital....

 (1963) and as Pat Burns on the ABC series The Tycoon
The Tycoon (TV series)
The Tycoon is a 32-episode American situation comedy television series broadcast by ABC. It starred Walter Brennan as the fictitious businessman Walter Andrews...

 with Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...

. After his Warner Brothers contract lapsed in 1964, Williams worked in TV commercials and guest appearances on various TV series.

The Green Hornet

In 1966, ABC-TV revived George W. Trendle
George W. Trendle
George Washington Trendle was a Detroit lawyer and businessman, best known as the producer of the Lone Ranger radio and television programs along with The Green Hornet. He is entombed in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery.-Movie theaters:...

's famous radio character in a new series, The Green Hornet. Van Williams signed with 20th Century-Fox to portray the mysterious masked hero and his alter ego, newspaper editor Britt Reid (son of Dan Reid the son of John Reid the brother of, The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....

).

Williams played the role straight, unlike the lampoon comedy approach of the same producer's Batman
Batman (TV series)
Batman is an American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin — two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to...

 show. He and co-star Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 also made guest appearances, in character, on the Batman series for three episodes, a two part episode (vs. Colonel Gumm) and a "window" cameo in another episode.

Bruce Lee died of a cerebral edema
Cerebral edema
Cerebral edema or cerebral œdema is an excess accumulation of water in the intracellular or extracellular spaces of the brain.-Vasogenic:Due to a breakdown of tight endothelial junctions which make up the blood-brain barrier...

 in 1973. Williams' acting career faded around that time, though he made a few television guest appearances and starred in one more series, an NBC Saturday morning offering entitled Westwind.

By the time he starred in The Green Hornet, Williams had become successful investing in various commercial ventures; a TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

 profile of 1966, titled "Banker with a Sting," characterized him as "your friendly neighborhood tycoon." He retired from acting in 1982 to open a Santa Monica
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 communications company that leases time on six two-way radio
Two-way radio
A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive , unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. The term refers to a personal radio transceiver that allows the operator to have a two-way conversation with other similar radios operating on the same radio frequency...

 repeater stations.

In 1993, Williams made a cameo in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a 1993 American semi fictionalized biographical martial arts action film telling the story of actor and martial arts expert Bruce Lee, starring Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee, Lauren Holly and Robert Wagner...

 as a director of The Green Hornet.

Filmography

Cinema

  • Tall Story
    Tall Story
    Tall Story is a 1960 American sports comedy film directed by Joshua Logan and starring Anthony Perkins and Jane Fonda. Future star Robert Redford made his big-screen debut as a basketball player....

     (1960)
  • The Caretakers
    The Caretakers
    The Caretakers is a 1963 United Artists film drama starring Joan Crawford, Robert Stack, Polly Bergen and Janis Paige in a story about a mental hospital....

     (1963)
  • Dragon the Bruce Lee story (1993)

Television

  • Bourbon Street Beat
    Bourbon Street Beat
    Bourbon Street Beat is a private detective series which aired on the ABC network from 1959-1960 and featured Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun, Richard Long as Rex Randolph, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Arlene Howell as Melody Lee Mercer, the secretary at the New Orleans detective agency in which...

     (1959–1960) as Ken Madison
  • Surfside 6
    Surfside 6
    Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered around a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison ; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...

     as Ken Madison
  • The Green Hornet
    The Green Hornet (TV series)
    The Green Hornet is a television show on the ABC US television network. It aired for the 1966–1967 TV season, and starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet/Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato.- Episodes:...

     (1966–1967) as Britt Reid/the Green Hornet
    Green Hornet
    Green Hornet may refer to:* The Green Hornet, a fictional character created by Fran Striker for the 1930s radio program and adapted into several media versions...

includes three cross-over episodes on Batman
Batman (TV series)
Batman is an American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin — two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to...

  • The Big Valley
    The Big Valley
    The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...

  • The Tycoon
    The Tycoon (TV series)
    The Tycoon is a 32-episode American situation comedy television series broadcast by ABC. It starred Walter Brennan as the fictitious businessman Walter Andrews...

  • The Dick Van Dyke Show
    The Dick Van Dyke Show
    The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....

     as Corporal Clark Rice
  • Nanny and the Professor
    Nanny and the Professor
    Nanny and the Professor is a U.S. fantasy situation comedy created by AJ Carothers and Thomas L. Miller for 20th Century Fox Television. During pre-production, the proposed title was Nanny Will Do. The series first aired as a mid-season replacement on January 21, 1970, on ABC and was last telecast...

     as Mr. Parsons
  • Westwind (1975–1976) as Steve Andrews
  • The Streets of San Francisco
    The Streets of San Francisco
    The Streets of San Francisco is a 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros...

     - "The Thrill Killers, Part 1" (1976) Officer Morton

External links

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