‘Green Hornet’ star of ’60s dies

STRONG-JAWED actor Van Williams, the man behind the Green Hornet mask in the 1960s, has died at 82.

Williams succumbed to kidney failure in his Scottsdale, Ariz., home on Nov. 29, his wife told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Texas-born son of a cattle rancher, Williams found a modicum of fame as private eye Kenny Madison in the 1959 series “Bourbon Street Blues,” and its more popular followup, “Surfside 6,” a year later.

But it wasn’t until he was cast in 1966 as the titular superhero on ABC’s “The Green Hornet,” a flagrant attempt to cash in on the success of “Batman,” that Williams reluctantly found his claim to fame.

It was a character — aka Britt Reid, a playboy who donned a mask and fedora to fight crime — he knew very well.

“When I was a kid I had actually been a fan of the Green Hornet when it was on the radio and in those serials at the theater, but I didn’t know if I wanted to star in a TV series like that,” Williams told Classic Images in 2007. “It was very similar to Adam West’s show, ‘Batman,’ and seemed like something that would probably be the kiss of death to my career.

“You do that type of show and become so identified with it, like Superman’s George Reeves was, and you can never get away from it.”

True to the script, Williams struggled to emerge from the shadow of his “Green Hornet” co-star, Bruce Lee, who played the hero’s sidekick, Kato.

But Williams continued to work on television through the 1970s, most notably in the short-lived, kidfriendly maritime series,