The Grimmfest Team are all shocked and horrified to hear of the sudden death of Treat Williams in a motorcycle accident at the age of 71.
Williams was a fine, often underrated actor of stage and screen, as comfortable in musicals and comedy as with gritty realism, stylised neo-noir or even horror. Probably best known to a lot of genre fans for his lead role in Stephen Sommers’ mischievously self-aware creature-feature DEEP RISING, he had a long, varied, and impressive career, and for a while looked set to be one of the biggest, most successful stars of his generation. But it never quite happened.
He was a 70s-style actor, whose biggest roles happened at the end of the 70s and in the early to mid 80s. And he wasn’t really an 80s face, any more than Keith Carradine or Jeff Bridges were. He was a little too off-beat, a little too prone to taking the riskier roles, the ones that interested him, rather than the ones that would build his career. Which of course means that he made some really interesting movies over the years.
He first made a real impression in Richard Lester and Terance McNally’s brash, bawdy, bathhouse-based black comedy THE RITZ, as a soprano-voiced homicide detective, working alongside such inveterate scene stealers as Jerry Stiller and Rita Moreno. He was the best thing about Milos Forman’s uneven film version of the hippie musical, HAIR, the one performer who best captured the confrontational counter-culture attitides that had spawned the original stage show, and was one of the few saving graces of Spielberg’s chaotic comedy, 1941. He was dazzling in Sidney Lumet’s masterful study of New York City Police corruption, PRINCE OF THE CITY, more than a match for De Niro, James Woods and Elizabeth McGovern in Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, and he brought complexity, nuance, and creepy charm to his portrayal of the predatory groomer, Arnold Friend’s seduction of a teenaged Laura Dern, in Joyce Chopra’s deeply uncomfortable SMOOTH TALK.
There were unbilled cameos in MARATHON MAN and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. There were underappreciated gems, such as Roger Spottiswoode and Buzz Kulik’s THE SEARCH FOR D.B. COOPER with Robert Duvall, and William Tannen’s FLASHPOINT, an all-too-little-known precurser to A SIMPLE PLAN, in which he appears with a whole host of cult talent, including Kris Kristofferson, Rip Torn, Roberts Blossom, Miguel Ferrer, Kurtwood Smith, and The One True Batman himself, Kevin Conroy. (He would later be reunited with Conroy, to provide voicework for the animated Batman TV series).
He was the magnificently named “Roger Mortis”, in the gleefully absurd cult horror comedy DEAD HEAT and he stole THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD with his show-stopping turn as the demented Critical Bill (“I am GODZILLA! You are JAPAN!”), and his scenes have been turning up all over social media ever since his death was announced. However else he might be remembered, he has achieved the highest form of contemporary celebrity there is: He has become a meme.
In recent years, he was mostly seen in supporting roles, in everything from big Hollywood movies to TV series in need of an actor who could bring a little weight and gravitas, and sometimes it felt as though his talents were not being put to the best use. But it was always a pleasure to see him onscreen, because he was the kind of actor who always gave everything 110%.
He is going to be sorely missed.
