Hal Williams, the actor known for his turns as the friendly neighborhood cop Smitty on Sanford and Son and as Marla Gibbs’ patient husband on another popular NBC sitcom, 227, has died. He was 91.
Williams died from natural causes Wednesday morning at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, his manager Zna Portlock Houston told TMZ. He had had some recent health issues.
The Ohio native also portrayed Goldie Hawn’s tough but sympathetic drill sergeant in the Howard Zieff-directed box office hit Private Benjamin (1980), then continued in the role for three seasons on the 1981-83 CBS sitcom adaptation that starred Lorna Patterson.
He played Sinbad’s dad, Rudy, on the 1993-94 Fox comedy The Sinbad Show and appeared on CBS’ The Waltons several times over the years as Harley Foster, a worker at the lumber mill who, it turns out, had escaped prison after he was wrongly incarcerated for killing a man in self-defense. (He eventually receives a presidential pardon from FDR.)
On 227, Williams starred as Lester Jenkins, who has his own construction company in support of his busybody wife, Mary (Gibbs), and their studious daughter, Brenda (Regina King). The comedy, from Norman Lear‘s Embassy Television, was set in an apartment building in Washington, D.C. and lasted five seasons (1985-90).
