Treat Williams

Biography: Treat Williams is the Connecticut-born, prep-school-educated actor, who first made a serious commitment to his craft during his university days at Pennsylvania's Franklin and Marshall College. Working summers with the nearby Fulton Repertory Theatre at Lancaster in the heart of the Amish country, Williams performed the classics as well as contemporary dramas and musicals. After graduating, Williams whose first name, incidently, is a family surname on his mother's side, headed for Manhattan where he understudied the Danny Zuko role in "Grease." After working in the Andrew Sisters musical "Over There," he made his brief film debut as a cop in "Deadly Hero," then returned to "Grease," this time with the starring role all his own. While he took leaves for two small film roles, in "The Ritz" and "The Eagle Has Landed", it was his stage work in "Grease" which led to his cinematic breakthrough in "Hair." Spotted by director Milos Forman, Williams was asked to read for the role of Berger, the hippie, in Forman's screen version of the Broadway hit. It took 13 auditions to land the part, but the film's release catapulted Williams into stardom. He then portrayed a GI on the make in Steven Spielberg's "1941," and starred in the romantic comedy "Why Would I Lie?", before tackling the role of Danny Ciello, the disllusioned New York cop who blew the whistle on some of his colleagues in Sidney Lumet's "Prince of the City." He followed with "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper," in which he played the legendary plane hijacker who successfully eluded capture (by Robert Duvall); "Flashpoint," in which he and Kris Kristofferson starred as a pair of maverick border patrolmen; Sergio Leon's "Once Upon a Time in America," in which he played a Hoffa-like labor organizer; and "Smooth Talk," a screen adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "Where Are You Going?" Television viewers have seen Williams in a prestigious pair of dramas, "Dempsey," a three-hour story of the hard-living heavyweight champ, and John Erman's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," which pitted Williams' Stanley Kowalski against Ann-Margaret's Blanche Dubois. Williams has also returned to Broadway sporadically -- first to appear in "Once in a Lifetime" while filming "Hair," and in 1981 to play the role of the pirate king in "The Pirates of Penzance." Currently, Williams stars in WB's TV series Everwood, now airing its 4th season. It is a Drama based series that tells the story of Dr. Andy Brown (Treat Williams) and his two kids after the sudden death of his wife. Following her will, he moves along with the kids to the lonely village Everwood, where needs to be a father for the first time. But reality is a lot different than is seems. Williams was nominated for several awards for this role.… Expand