Deal with Williams, a long-time character actor and star of the well-loved cult motion pictures Deep Rising and Lifeless Warmth, has died at 71. In response to a report by way of People Magazine, the actor died in a tragic bike accident. His agent, Barry McPherson, instructed the journal, “He was killed this afternoon. He was making a left or a proper and a automobile lower him off,” McPherson mentioned, including, “I’m simply devastated. He was the nicest man. He was so proficient.”
Williams had an extended, legendary profession on the silver display screen. He first broke out within the late seventies in motion pictures 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 favorite of ours 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, however it by no means fairly occurred. Nonetheless, 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 lined extensively right here, together with Lifeless 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 greatest success on the small display screen, 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 generally known as one of many nicest guys in Hollywood. When researching Lifeless Warmth for The Best Movie You Never Saw, I spoke to an previous 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 e 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 just a few instances on set. And I’d expressed nice curiosity in becoming a member of him on any flight he would possibly make accessible. The issue was, Deal with was banned, by his contract, from flying whereas making the movie. However he stored speaking about how a lot he wanted to “Go up”… And the way it was killing him to not be capable of…
The “Butcher Store Scene” had been looming for weeks. The director, Mark Goldblatt, was not on time, by means of no fault of his personal, and was terrified that the studio was going to chop the scene, with a purpose to maintain him on-schedule and on-budget. So, David Helpern and Michael Meltzer, who’d employed me, requested Mark if he could be keen 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 instantly accountable for the entire sequence.
We shot from like 7pm til perhaps 6am the subsequent morning. And whereas I’d spent the entire evening attacking Deal with with every thing from a large rubber steer carcass, to an precise LIVER, we had a lot enjoyable doing it, that once we wrapped, Deal with wiped off the faux blood and slime and REAL LIVER JUICE and mentioned— “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 palms me a headset and factors me to the passenger seat, and jumps within the pilot’s seat, and really… VERY… meticulously goes by means of a guidelines. He asks for clearance from the tower, and I’m considering— Yeah— HERE we go… The minute they offer 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 affordable pilots, to our departure level… And I’m considering… “Actually?”
And Deal with gently will increase our raise… and we ascend, about as quick as a misplaced helium balloon, into the smoggy sky above the San Fernando Valley…
And, reaching some sort of commonplace site visitors altitude, we then flew North by Northwest… For what appeared like half an hour. Straight and stage… Secure and sound… And I stored 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 inside head, Deal with instantly 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 subsequent 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 instantly we had been again to “NORMAL” flight.
Certainly Williams was one of many greats, and he will likely be missed.
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