Adam Williams

Known for ActingBorn 1922-11-26Died 2006-12-04Wall Lake, Iowa, USA

Adam Williams (born Adam William Berg, November 26, 1922 – December 4, 2006) was an American film and television actor. A veteran "bad guy" actor of 1950s film and TV, he began his career after distinguished World War II military service as a United States Navy pilot, for which he received the Navy Cross. In 1952, Williams played the lead, a Los Angeles woman killer, in the film Without Warning! In 1953, he was cast as Larry, a car bomber, in The Big Heat. He had a leading role in the 1958 science fiction movie The Space Children. Other notable film roles include the psychiatrist in Fear Strikes Out (1957) and Valerian in North by Northwest (1959). During the 1950s and 1960s, he appeared on dozens of television series, including the syndicated Sheriff of Cochise, set in Arizona and starring John Bromfield, and Have Gun – Will Travel in the episode "The Reasonable Man". He portrayed private detective and murderer Jason Beckmeyer in the 1957 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Runaway Corpse." In 1961, he was cast as Jim Gates in the episode "Frontier Week" on Joanne Dru's sitcom Guestward, Ho!, set on a dude ranch in New Mexico. In 1960, he played the role of a sailor hitching a ride in The Twilight Zone season 1 episode "The Hitch-Hiker", where he is picked up by a terrified driver played by Inger Stevens, who is compelled to pick him up so that he may offer protection and safety to her from a mysterious hitchhiker who shows up at various times and places along the road while she travels across country. Many reviewers have cited this episode as one of The Twilight Zone's "10 Greatest" of the series. He had also appeared in the Twilight Zone episode "A Most Unusual Camera". Between 1959 and 1967 he appeared in six episodes of The Rifleman and in four episodes of Bonanza, and in 1961 as Adam in "A Rope for Charlie Munday", in the ABC adventure series The Islanders. He was cast as Burley Keller in the 1961 episode "The Persecuted" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series Lawman. He guest-starred in an episode of the 1961 NBC series The Americans, based on family conflicts stemming from the American Civil War, and in an episode of the 1961 series The Asphalt Jungle. One of his later roles was in the 1976 television movie Helter Skelter.Read more

Movies & web series

Wire Service

The Twilight Zone

Arrest and Trial

The Gallant Men

North by Northwest

Chevron Theatre

The Untouchables

Combat!

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Perry Mason

The Ford Television Theatre

The Big Heat

Bonanza

Mission of Danger

Queen for a Day

The Fugitive

Honey West

Have Gun, Will Travel

Rawhide

Fear Strikes Out

The Rifleman

77 Sunset Strip

Daniel Boone

Helter Skelter

The Westerner

Alcoa Theatre

Maverick

Switch

Trackdown

Mannix

The High Chaparral

The Last Sunset

Cannon

General Electric Theater

Four Star Playhouse

Follow Me, Boys!

The Detectives

Sam Benedict

Thriller

Outlaws

Stagecoach West

Marcus Welby, M.D.

Crashout

Gunsmoke

The Glory Guys

Felony Squad

The Rack