Hal Williams Height, Age, Death, Wife, Children, Family, Biography » StarsUnfolded

Some Lesser Known Facts About Hal Williams

• Hal Williams was born in Columbus, Ohio.

• His parents were employed by Curtiss Wright Aviation and much of his childhood was spent in his great grandmother’s house in the vicinity of Fort Hayes.

• The area was described as a “melting pot” of cultures and races by him.

• His home was very close to the corner of Stelzer and Morse roads which are now the site of an Easton Costco.

• When he was a youngster, he hunted rabbits in the open fields there.

• From an early age, Williams had a passion for acting.

• He had a dog named Sandy, and used to play around with him pretending that he was the Lone Ranger and he was Tonto.

• He was not permitted to come and go from the yard very often and so his Saturdays were instead spent at the movies.

• On the east side of Columbus, the black side of town, there were four theatres, the Cameo, the Lincoln, the Empress and the Pythian.

• Every Saturday, Williams arrived at the Empress to see two movies and a serial chapter.

• He worked for The Columbus Dispatch while in school at Franklin Junior High and East High School and was also a track athlete and musical performer.

• He worked at various jobs after school.

• He served as a worker at Franklin Village, an 80 acre campus of children living in cottage homes under cottage parents that operated in Grove City through the Franklin County Children’s Services.

• He also worked with children in the juvenile detention system, and picked up jobs as a social worker, a postal worker and a corrections officer along the way.

• In 1968, his marriage had broken down and his social work career stalled.

• Williams decided to try his luck at acting instead.

• He left home with two pistols and a tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken, got into his Pontiac Bonneville and drove to California, reaching Los Angeles within 48 hours.

• He shared the idea with his parents only. At the time, he was divorced with three children, and his kids remained with his parents, while he was finding a place to stay.

• In Los Angeles, Williams contacted Maidie Ruth Norman, a black movie star whose brother had worked with him.

• She directed him to go to the Hollywood Reporter and Variety each Friday, as these newspapers included advertisements for casting calls for plays, movies and TV.

• Williams took this advice and was picked up by his first play.

• At that time, an agent asked him if he ever considered doing commercials, and he signed three national television commercials shortly after.

• Auditions began to roll in, so Williams continued his nights at a post office in Los Angeles so he could appear for auditions during the day.

• If he had to work, he wrote himself an excuse letter, dropped it off in the outgoing Ohio mailbox, picked it up with a Columbus postmark, and sent it off to explain his absence.

• He went on acting as the police officer in Sanford and Son for almost three years, until his postmaster noticed him playing the part and offered him a choice, post office or acting, he chose acting.

• Williams switched to acting and left his job at the post office. Since 1970 he has worked as a full-time actor.

• He would go on to appear in Sanford and Son as Officer Smitty Smith, a recurring character in the 1971 TV series.

• According to Williams, the whole idea was an accident that occurred during a rehearsal and, when the producers saw it as amusing, they continued to develop from that point.

• Foxx returned to his Smitty role in five episodes of the follow up Sanford in 1980, while Smitty was reprised by him.

• In 1980, Williams co starred with Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan in the film, Private Benjamin, as Drill Sergeant Ted Ross.

• He brought that character into television Private Benjamin, a series that aired from 1981 to 1983.

• Williams filled a role that he’s most known for from 1985 to 1990, that of Lester Jenkins on 227.

• It chronicled the lives of the people in a Washington DC apartment complex and Williams portrayed the husband of Marla Gibbs’ character Mary Jenkins and the father of Regina King’s character Brenda, who made her television debut.

• His character was created for the show because Gibbs didn’t want to play a single mom.

• It aired on NBC for five seasons and 116 episodes.

• He was comedian Sinbad’s sidekick on The Sinbad Show in the early and mid 1990s, appearing as the character Rudy Bryan on 20 episodes.

• Williams has also appeared on the big screen in a few other movies, such as The Rookie (1990), playing the role of a police detective alongside Clint Eastwood, and Guess Who (2005), starring as Howard Jones, the father of the character played by Bernie Mac, with Ashton Kutcher and Zoe Saldana.

• In his later years, Williams continued to work as well, and in 2024, he took up the role of Autry in the rebooted Matlock series.

• Hal Williams passed away on 15 July 2026 at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, aged 91.

• He was survived by his two children, three grandchildren and three great grandchildren, and had three children with his first wife.