Williams was born in Wall Lake, Iowa. A veteran “bad guy” actor of 1950s film and TV who began his career after distinguished World War II military service as a United States Navy pilot, for which he received the Navy Cross. In 1952, Williams played the lead, a Los Angeles woman killer, in the film, Without Warning! In 1953, he was cast as Larry, a car bomber, in The Big Heat. He had a leading role in the 1958 science fiction movie The Space Children. Other notable roles include the psychiatrist in Fear Strikes Out (1957) and Valerian in North by Northwest (1959). An accomplished pilot, Williams also worked as an examiner for the FAA. During the 1950s and 1960s, he appeared on dozens of television series, including the syndicated Sheriff of Cochise, set in Arizona and starring John Bromfield, and CBS’s Have Gun – Will Travel in the episode entitled, “The Reasonable Man”. He portrayed private detective and murderer Jason Beckmeyer in the 1957 Perry Mason episode, “The Case of the Runaway Corpse.” In 1961, he was cast as Jim Gates in the episode “Frontier Week” on Joanne Dru’s ABC sitcom, Guestward, Ho!, set on a dude ranch in New Mexico. He appeared in 1961 as Adam in “A Rope for Charlie Munday” in the ABC adventure series, The Islanders. He was cast as Burley Keller in the 1961 episode “The Persecuted” of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, Lawman. He also guest starred in an episode of the 1961 NBC series The Americans, based on family conflicts stemming from the American Civil War, and in an episode of the 1961 ABC series The Asphalt Jungle. One of his last roles was in the 1976 television movie, Helter Skelter. Williams died in Los Angeles of lymphoma in 2006 at the age of eighty-four. He is interred in California.