Hal Williams, who played a wide variety of Everyman characters on television in the 1970s and ’80s, when Black family life in America became a subject in mainstream entertainment, died on Wednesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., a city outside Palm Springs. He was 91.
The death was confirmed by his manager, Zna Portlock Houston.
Mr. Williams’s best-remembered character was Officer “Smitty” Smith, the straight man in a comedic duo of police officers on “Sanford and Son” (NBC, 1972-77). But his many regular roles and guest appearances made him, more than anything else, a recognizable face from the world of TV.
He was the auto mechanic in “The Waltons” (CBS, 1972-81), the cook inmate in “On the Rocks” (ABC, 1975-76) and the loving husband on “227” (NBC, 1985-90). He also had small roles in movies, including as a porn star in “Hardcore” (1979), a drill sergeant in “Private Benjamin” (1980) and a disapproving grandfather on “Guess Who” (2005).
“Hal Williams is all of these people and more,” The New Pittsburgh Courier wrote in 1981. “He is one of Hollywood’s most versatile, unsung working actors, who has had recurring roles on as many as three series at once.”
Mr. Williams’s career was impressively self-made. It began in 1968, when he was a social worker cycling through jobs in Columbus, Ohio, his hometown. Mr. Williams’s marriage had fallen apart, and he had three children to support — but he still felt the urge to take a risk.
“I’m extremely unhappy,” he recalled to Columbus Monthly in 2023. “What’s the one thing I want to try to do?”
He had loved acting since appearing in school plays, and Bill Cosby had recently become a star thanks to “I Spy” (NBC, 1965-68). The nation might have a new receptiveness to Black actors, Mr. Williams thought.
He told his parents he was moving to Hollywood. One Wednesday evening, he walked out the door of his home into his Pontiac Bonneville and headed West.
“I said, ‘If I don’t do this now, I know I will never get the guts to do it,’” he told Columbus Monthly.
Once he got settled, his children joined him in California. He worked at the post office at Los Angeles International Airport by night and auditioned by day. He gave himself three years to make it as an actor. That wound up being exactly how long it took to score a role on “Sanford and Son.”
Mr. Williams’s intuition about Black actors was vindicated.
Before “Sanford and Son,” the last predominantly Black TV series had been “Amos ‘n’ Andy” (CBS, 1951-53), which was taken off the air amid condemnations that its portrayal of Black people was racist. “Sanford and Son,” which concerned a father-son duo of scrap dealers, took a lighthearted approach to class and race relations, led by its star, Redd Foxx.
As Smitty, Mr. Williams was the patient straight man to his stiff white policeman partner, Officer “Hoppy” Hopkins, played by Howard Platt. Their main shtick involved Smitty correcting Hoppy’s use of slang. When Hoppy leaves a group of Black characters, he says, “Time for us to divide” — instead of “split.”
In an interview with the blog getTV, Mr. Williams recalled the show’s writers telling him and Mr. Platt, “Go away and think of some slang.” The two would come up with their bits at hot dog and hamburger joints.
Of all the shows Mr. Williams appeared in, “‘Sanford’ has had the longevity,” he told getTV. “Howard said to me, ‘You know, we got paid for having a damn good time.’ And I said, ‘We sure did.’”
Hal Williams was born on Dec. 14, 1934, in Columbus. His mother and father worked for Curtiss-Wright Aviation, a plane manufacturer. He attended college at Ohio State University hoping to become a commercial artist but dropped out after marrying and starting a family.
He ultimately married and divorced three times. He is survived by a daughter, Teri Williams; a son, Hal; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Another son, Mark, died in a hiking accident in 1977.
After “Sanford,” Mr. Williams was a regular or guest on a host of Black shows that followed: “Good Times” (CBS, 1974-79), “The Jeffersons” (CBS, 1975-85), the second “Roots” mini-series (1979) and “227,” in which he was the co-star. He appeared in that show’s original incarnation, a play, in which his character was “a philandering sleaze” having an affair “with the vamp upstairs,” he told The Associated Press in 1987.
“I didn’t want to be like that on television,” Mr. Williams added.
His goal for “227” — which portrayed residents of a Washington, D.C., apartment building — was “to show the caring husband as opposed to the always absent Black husband,” Mr. Williams told Jet magazine in 1985.
Some of the reforms Mr. Williams hoped for had taken place by the end of his life.
“There are a lot more Black producers, writers, and directors than ever,” he told the entertainment news site Tell-Tale TV. “But we opened the doors.”
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