Clarence Williams III is dead at 81
Clarence Williams III, the reflectively intense actor who starred as Linc Hayes, the young, hip undercover police officer on ABC’s “The Mod Squad,” died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 81.
The cause was colon cancer, his manager, Allan Mindel, said.
“The Mod Squad,” which ran from 1968 to 1973, was one of the first of its kind — a prime-time network series that focused on members of the hippie generation at the same time that it exploited them.
Williams was one of the first Black actors to have a lead role on a TV series.
Clarence Williams III was born in Manhattan on Aug. 21, 1939. His father, Clarence Jr., known as Clay, was a musician. His mother is omitted from his biographies. Asked about her on Sunday, a family member declined to give her name and described her as “largely absent.” Williams was raised by his paternal grandparents.
Although “The Mod Squad”
made Williams a symbol of the Vietnam War generation, he actually served in the military just before that era. He was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division in the late 1950s.
His interest in acting began when he visited a Harlem YMCA, where his sister was working, and dropped in to watch a play’s run-through. By the end of the evening, he had been cast in the production.
He began his acting career on Broadway, where his grandfather had appeared as early as 1908. The younger Williams appeared in three plays, including “Slow Dance on the Killing Ground” (1964), for which he received a Tony Award nomination and a Theater World Award. The New York Times review offered high praise.
He owed his screen career to Bill Cosby, then a rising star. Cosby saw him on the New York stage and recommended him to Spelling, who was casting “The Mod Squad” at the time.
Cosby was the first Black actor to win a leading role in a prime-time American series, “I Spy,” beginning in 1965.
After the series ended, Williams dropped out of sight for a while, expressing disappointment in the kinds of roles available to Black men. He returned to Broadway, appearing as an African head of state, with Maggie Smith, in the Tom Stoppard drama “Night and Day” (1979).
Beginning in the 1980s, he had a busy film career. He played Prince’s abusive father in “Purple Rain” (1984) and Wesley Snipes’ heroin-addicted father in “Sugar Hill” (1993). He was a crazed blackmailer in
John Frankenheimer’s “52 PickUp” (1986) and a wild-eyed storytelling mortician in “Tales From the Hood” (1995). He had small roles in the blaxploitation parody “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” (1988) and in Norman Mailer’s “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” (1987).
Television brought Williams new opportunities too. He was a leader of the Attica prison riots in HBO’s “Against the Wall” (1994); a segregationist governor’s manservant in the miniseries “George Wallace” (1997); Muhammad Ali’s father in “Ali: An American Hero” (2000); and a retired CIA operative in 10 “Mystery Woman” movies (2003-07). He did guest appearances on close to 40 series, from “Hill Street Blues” to “Empire.”
In 1967, Williams married Gloria Foster, a stage actress who appeared twice on “The Mod Squad” and later played the Oracle in “The Matrix.” They divorced in 1984.
Williams is survived by his daughter, Jamey Phillips, and his sister, Sondra Pugh.