William Campbell (film actor)

William Campbell
Campbell (left) in The High and the Mighty (1954)
Born	(1923-10-30)October 30, 1923 Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	April 28, 2011(2011-04-28) (aged 87) Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1950–1996
Spouse(s)	Tereza (1962 – his death) Barbara Bricker (1960–1961) Judith Exner (1952–1958)

William Campbell (October 30, 1923 – April 28, 2011) was an American actor who appeared in supporting roles in major film productions, and also starred in several low-budget B-movies and horror films.

Campbell's film career began in 1950, with a small part in the John Garfield film, The Breaking Point. After several years of similar supporting performances in a number of films, including as a co-pilot in William Wellman's The High and the Mighty (1954), he won his first starring role in Cell 2455 Death Row (1955), a low-budget prison film for Columbia Pictures. He played a death row inmate, based loosely on the true story of Caryl Chessman, who staunchly proclaimed his innocence and obtained numerous reprieves over many years until finally being executed. Campbell's surprisingly powerful performance received generally good notices from critics, but it did very little for his career; his next several roles were again providing support to lead actors, including Love Me Tender (1956) (in which he became the first person to sing onscreen with Elvis Presley) and the 1958 film version of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead.

In 1958, Campbell co-starred with Paul Birch in Cannonball, a short-lived television series about truck drivers. After that, he toiled for more years in small parts in increasingly lower grade movies.