Adam Williams
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.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 5.547 |
Birthday | 1922-11-26 |
Place of Birth | Wall Lake, Iowa, USA |
Also Known As | Adam William Berg, Andy Williams , |
1959
North by Northwest
7.982/4099
Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
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North by Northwest
1957
The Garment Jungle
6.4/25
Alan Mitchell returns to New York to work for his father Walter, the owner of a fashion house that designs and manufactures dresses. To stay non-union...
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The Garment Jungle
1954
Dragonfly Squadron
6/5
A Korean War film with a secondary plot of the training of South Korean pilots, to fly fighters in air defense, by American Air Force instructors,led...
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Dragonfly Squadron
1952
Without Warning!
5.906/16
Los Angeles is paralysed with terror when a lovesick murderer takes to the streets with a pair of garden shears
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Without Warning!
1955
Crashout
6.5/18
Convict Van Duff engineers a large-scale prison break; the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison, then set out on a long,...
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Crashout
1966
Follow Me, Boys!
6.6/27
Lem Siddons is part of a traveling band who has a dream of becoming a lawyer. Deciding to settle down, he finds a job as a stockboy in the general sto...
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Follow Me, Boys!
1953
The Big Heat
7.6/492
After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicio...
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The Big Heat
1957
The Lonely Man
6/16
Aging gunslinger Jacob Wade hopes to settle down with his estranged son, but his old enemies have other plans for him. Gunslinger Jacob Wade finds his...
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The Lonely Man
1956
The Proud and Profane
6/8
In this romantic drama, beautiful Red Cross volunteer Lee Ashley arrives on the South Pacific island of New Caledonia to learn more about the circumst...
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The Proud and Profane
1965
The Glory Guys
6.5/30
Though a fictionalized Western based on George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the film is almost a gene...
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The Glory Guys
1961
The Last Sunset
6.744/84
At a Mexican ranch, fugitive O'Malley and pursuing Sheriff Stribling agree to help rancher Breckenridge drive his herd into Texas where Stribling coul...
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The Last Sunset
1951
Flying Leathernecks
5.9/60
Major Daniel Kirby takes command of a squadron of Marine fliers just before they are about to go into combat. While the men are well meaning, he finds...
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Flying Leathernecks
1956
The Rack
6.6/25
Army Captain Edward Hall returns to the U.S. after two years in a prison camp in the Korean War. In the camp, he was brainwashed and helped the Chines...
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The Rack
1953
Vice Squad
5.9/16
A Los Angeles police captain (Edward G. Robinson) ties the case of a slain policeman to a bank robbery, all in a day.
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Vice Squad
1963
Gunfight at Comanche Creek
5.4/14
Comanche Creek, Colorado, 1875: Prisoner Jack Mason is broken out of jail by a gang of strangers. They use him in a robbery, then when the dead-or-ali...
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Gunfight at Comanche Creek
1958
Darby's Rangers
5.9/9
Stationed in Scotland, Maj. William Darby and the men under his command are trained by British commandos, becoming the U.S. Army's 1st Ranger Battalio...
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Darby's Rangers
1976
Helter Skelter
6.8/64
The investigation of two horrific mass murders leads to the capture and trial of the psychotic pseudo-hippie Charles Manson and his "family".
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Helter Skelter
1957
The Oklahoman
5.6/12
After his wife dies in childbirth, a doctor settles down in the small Oklahoma town of Cherokee Wells to raise his newborn daughter. Unfortunately, no...
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The Oklahoman
1957
Fear Strikes Out
7/18
True story of the life of Jimmy Piersall, who battled mental illness to achieve stardom in major league baseball.
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Fear Strikes Out
1958
The Space Children
4/42
A glowing brain-like creature arrives on a beach near a rocket test site via a teleportation beam. The alien communicates telepathically with the chil...
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The Space Children
1951
Benjy
6.667/3
Benjy is a 1951 American short documentary film directed by Fred Zinnemann. It won an Oscar in 1952 for Documentary Short Subject. Henry Fonda narrate...
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Benjy
1958
The Badlanders
6.2/42
Two men are released from the Arizona Territorial Prison at Yuma in 1898. One, The Dutchman, is out to get both gold and revenge from certain people i...
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The Badlanders
2012
Ladies Knight
0/0
"Ladies Knight" is Joe Rothenberg's undergrad senior thesis project from USC's Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts.
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Ladies Knight
1954
The Yellow Tomahawk
6/6
When the army insists on building a fort on Indian land, in defiance of a treaty, the warnings of a scout go unheeded.
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The Yellow Tomahawk
1962
Convicts 4
5.4/5
After his death sentence is commuted to life in prison, John Resko is transferred from Sing-Sing to Dannemora where, with the help of a humane prison...
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Convicts 4
1960
Mission of Danger
5/1
After his Rangers are caught during a raid, a major must infiltrate the French army to save his men.
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Mission of Danger
1951
Queen for a Day
6/1
Adapted from the TV and radio series of the same name, the producer of said show reads letters from three woman providing the framing story for this m...
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Queen for a Day
1964
The New Interns
5/3
Young doctors mix romance with their careers in a big-city hospital.
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