Willie Garson
Actor
BORN FEBRUARY 20, 1964 - DIED SEPTEMBER 21, 2021, AGED 57
AS CARRIE Bradshaw’s best friend Stanford Blatch in Sex And The City, Willie Garson added a wit and flamboyance that made his scenes with Sarah Jessica Parker fizzle with brilliance.
The actors were real-life pals who met years earlier on a blind date. Garson said they often struggled to make it through their scenes because they would be laughing so hard.
He starred in 27 out of 98 episodes from the TV series and the first two Sex And The City films. Two months prior to his death, he was spotted filming a scene with Parker for the show’s latest revival, And Just Like That..., in New York.
Garson was a prolific actor on stage and screen, appearing in more than 75 films and 300 TV episodes over four decades.
From the mid-1980s onwards he starred in some of the biggest shows of all time, including Twin Peaks, Ally McBeal, Friends, Star Trek: Voyager, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Cheers and The X-Files.
He was born William Garson Paszamant in Highland Park, New Jersey to Muriel and Donald M. Paszamant.
After studying theatre at Wesleyan University, he attended Yale School of Drama and quickly found work in television.
His other long-running role was as con man Mozzie in US comedy-drama White Collar, which ran for six series until 2014.
Although his Sex And The City character was gay, Garson was heterosexual in real life and was praised for injecting nuance and sensitivity into his performance.
He was an advocate of adoption and adopted his son Nathen, now 20, in 2009. He died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Los Angeles and is survived by Nathen.