William Windom (actor)

William Windom (September 28, 1923 – August 16, 2012) was an American actor. He was perhaps best known for his work on television, including two episodes of The Twilight Zone. He portrayed Glen Morley, a fictional congressman from Minnesota, a role based on Windom's own Republican great-grandfather and namesake in the three season ABC sitcom The Farmer's Daughter, co-starring Inger Stevens as his beautiful young housekeeper.

Windom also achieved fame as the character of cartoonist John Monroe on the sitcom My World and Welcome to It, for which he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series; as Commodore Matt Decker, commander of the doomed USS Constellation in the Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine;" the character Randy Lane in the Night Gallery episode "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar;" perhaps the most common recurring character, Dr. Seth Hazlitt, on the CBS series Murder, She Wrote; as the President of the United States in the feature film Escape from the Planet of the Apes; and for voicing Puppetino in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night.

Early life
Windom was born in New York City, the son of Isobel Wells (née Peckham) and Paul Windom, an architect. He was the great-grandson of the United States Secretary of the Treasury of the same name. He served in the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations in World War II, as a paratrooper with Company B, 1st Battalion 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.

Career
Windom's first motion picture role was as Mr. Gilmer, the prosecutor of Tom Robinson in the 1962 Academy Award-winning To Kill a Mockingbird.

Windom appeared in 1961 "All Is Forgiven" episode of The Donna Reed Show as 'Ed Corwin' and the 1962 episode 'Wide Open Spaces" as 'David Adams'.

In 1968, he starred with Frank Sinatra in The Detective, playing a homophobic killer. The role received great reviews from The New York Times.

From September 1963 to April 1966, he co-starred in the television version of the previous film, The Farmer's Daughter, a series about a young Minnesota woman who becomes the housekeeper for a widowed congressman. In the 1969–1970 NBC series My World and Welcome to It, Windom played the James Thurberesque lead and received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series. After the cancellation of the series, Windom toured the country for a time in a one-man Thurber show. After the run was completed, Windom filmed the pilot for a new series Is there a Doctor in the House? with Rosemary Forsyth. The pilot was written with both actors in mind for the two starring roles, and while it was well received by the critics and in viewership ratings in both its first run and a rerun in the summer of 1971, it was not picked up for a series.

He was a regular for a decade on the series Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher. His initial appearance in the role was in October 1985. (He had previously appeared as a guest star playing another character in April 1985.) The producers enjoyed his work, and consequently invited him to return at the beginning of the second season to take on the role permanently. He briefly left the show to work on another series in 1990, but the show was short-lived and he returned to Murder, She Wrote as a semi-regular for the remainder of the run of that series.

He appeared as Commodore Matt Decker, the tortured captain the USS Constellation in the Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine," a role he reprised nearly 40 years later for Star Trek New Voyages.

Death
He died on August 16, 2012, at the age of 88 at his home in Woodacre, California, from congestive heart failure. He was survived by four of his children – Rachel, Heather, Hope and Rebel – and four grandchildren.

Television

 * The Lucy Show, series; "Lucy Digs up a Date" (1962)
 * Guestward, Ho!, ABC television series, episode "The Christmas Spirit" (1960)
 * Gunsmoke, CBS-TV series (1961, 1962, and 1972)
 * The Donna Reed Show, ABC series, "All Is Forgiven" (1961) and "The Wide Open Spaces" (1962)
 * The Twilight Zone episode: "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" (TV Series, 1961)
 * Cheyenne as Dennis Carter in "Legacy of the Lost" (1961)
 * Checkmate as Peter Morell in "Through a Dark Glass" (1961)
 * The New Breed as Warren Gilels in "The Compulsion to Confess" (1961)
 * The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor as Sutter in "Tobey's Place" (1961)
 * Follow the Sun as Meredith St. John in "A Ghost in Her Gazebo" (1962)
 * Bus Stop as Ed Henderson in "The Ordeal of Kevin Brooke (1962)
 * Thriller as Lou Waters in "Man of Mystery" (1962)
 * Stoney Burke as Reese Ludlow in "A Matter of Pride" (1962)
 * 77 Sunset Strip, 2 episodes (1962-1963)
 * Combat! as Captain Lew Anders in "Off Limits" (1963)
 * For Love or Money (1963)
 * The Farmer's Daughter (ABC series with Inger Stevens, 1963–1966)
 * The Twilight Zone episode: "Miniature" (TV series, 1963)
 * Empire as Lawrence Rowan in "Hidden Asset" (1963)
 * The Wild Wild West as Ben Victor in "The Night of the Flying Pie Plate" (1966)
 * Twelve O'Clock High as Lt. Col. Christy in "Gauntlet of Fire" (1966)
 * Star Trek episode: "The Doomsday Machine" (TV series, 1967)
 * The Fugitive episode: "The Ivy Maze" (TV series, 1967)
 * The Invaders (TV series, 1967)
 * Custer (ABC TV series starring Wayne Maunder, 1967)
 * Mission Impossible episode: "The Widow" (TV series, 1967)
 * Ironside (1967 TV series) episode: "Trip to Hashbury" (1968)
 * Columbo: Prescription: Murder (TV movie, 1968)
 * My World and Welcome to It (TV series, 1969)
 * Hawaii Five-O episode: "Which Way Did They Go?" (TV series, 1969)
 * Columbo: Short Fuse (TV series, 1972)
 * Night Gallery episode segment: "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar"' (TV series, 1971)
 * Is there a Doctor in the House? (TV series pilot, 1971)
 * All in the Family episode: "Success Story" (TV series, 1971)
 * Ironside (1967 TV series) episode: "Achilles' Heel" (1972)
 * Night Gallery episode segment: "Little Girl Lost"' (TV series, 1972)
 * The Streets of San Francisco (TV series, 1972)
 * Banacek episode: "Project Phoenix" (TV series, 1972)
 * Medical Center episode: "Broken Image" (TV series, 1973)
 * Griff (TV series, 1973)
 * The Partridge Family episode "Bedknobs and Drumsticks" (TV series, 1973)
 * Barney Miller, episode "Doomsday" (TV series, 1975)
 * Mannix, episode "Hardball" (TV series; final episode, 1975)
 * The Tony Randall Show, episode: "Money vs. Stature" (TV series, 1976)
 * The Feather and Father Gang, episode: "The Two-Star Killer" (TV series, 1976)
 * Gibbsville, episode "Saturday Night" (TV series, 1976)
 * Once an Eagle, miniseries (1976)
 * Seventh Avenue, miniseries (1977)
 * Hunter, episode "Lysenko Syndrome" (TV series, 1977)
 * Quincy, M.E., episode: "The Hot Dog Murders" (TV series, 1977)
 * Family episode 28: "An Endangered Species"  (TV series, 1977)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney, episode 21: "The Bluegrass Special" (TV series, 1977)
 * Brothers and Sisters (TV series, 1979)
 * Blind Ambition (TV miniseries, 1979)
 * The Incredible Hulk episode: "East Winds" (TV series, 1981)
 * Barney Miller (TV series, 1981) - 2 part episode: "Contempt" (he was never actually seen except for his feet and 1 hand)
 * ''Leave 'Em Laughing (1981 TV Movie), (Smiley,The Clown)
 * Flamingo Road (TV series, 1982)
 * Hart to Hart (TV series, 1982) Season 4, ep. 9, With this Hart I thee Wed
 * Mama's Family (TV series, 1983) Season 1, ep. 9, role: Woody Miller
 * Matt Houston episode: "Heritage" (TV series, 1983)
 * Automan (TV series, 1983)
 * Highway to Heaven (TV series, 1985)
 * Knight Rider episode: "Knight Racer" (TV series, 1985)
 * Murder, She Wrote (1985–1996) (TV series) Role: Dr. Seth Hazlitt
 * Super Password (TV series, 1986)
 * Newhart (TV Series) Episode 113: "Good Bye and Good Riddance, Mr. Chips" April 6, 1987
 * Parenthood (TV series, 1990)
 * Dinosaurs (TV series, voice, 1991-1994)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog (TV series, voice, 1994–1995)
 * Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II (TV series, 2004)

Filmography

 * To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
 * Cattle King (1963)
 * One Man's Way (1964)
 * The Americanization of Emily (1964)
 * Hour of the Gun (1967)
 * The Detective (1968)
 * The Angry Breed (1968)
 * The Gypsy Moths (1969)
 * Brewster McCloud (1970)
 * Assault on the Wayne (1971)
 * The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
 * A Taste of Evil (1971)
 * Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
 * Fools' Parade (1971)
 * Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972)
 * The Man (1972)
 * The Girls of Huntington House (1973)
 * Echoes of a Summer (1976)
 * Goodbye, Franklin High (1978)
 * Mean Dog Blues (1978)
 * Separate Ways (1981)
 * Desperate Lives (TV movie, 1982)
 * Last Plane Out (1983)
 * Off Sides (Pigs vs. Freaks) (1984)
 * Grandview, U.S.A. (1984)
 * Surviving: A Family in Crisis (1985) (TV movie)
 * Space Rage (1985)
 * Prince Jack (1985)
 * Welcome Home (1986)
 * Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) (uncredited)
 * Dennis the Menace: Dinosaur Hunter (1987) (TV movie)
 * Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) (voice)
 * She's Having a Baby (1988)
 * Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1993)
 * Sommersby (1993)
 * Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
 * True Crime (1999)
 * Raising Dead (2002)
 * Yesterday's Dreams (2005)