John Williams (actor)

John Williams
A scene from Alfred Hitchcock's film Dial M for Murder (1954). Pictured from left: Ray Milland, Robert Cummings and John Williams.
Born	(1903-04-15)15 April 1903 Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
Died	5 May 1983(1983-05-05) (aged 80) La Jolla, California, U.S.
Occupation	actor
Years active	1924–79
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Spouse(s)	Helen Williams (?-1983) (his death)

John Williams (15 April 1903 – 5 May 1983) was an English stage, film and television actor. He is remembered for his role as chief inspector Hubbard in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder, as the chauffeur in Sabrina, and as portraying the second "Mr. French" on TV's Family Affair.

Born in Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire, England, he was educated at Lancing College and began acting on the Broadway stage in 1924. He then went on to appear in thirty more Broadway plays over the next four decades. He first acted in Hollywood films in 1930, debuting in director Mack Sennett's The Chumps. In his career he appeared in more than forty films and also made more than forty guest appearances on television shows. He was part of the regular cast for the 1967 season of the family comedy Family Affair.

Outside his film career, Williams gained fame as the star of a television commercial for 120 Music Masterpieces, a four-LP set of classical music excerpts from Columbia House. This became the longest-running nationally seen commercial in U.S. television history, for 13 years from 1971 to 1984. It began, "I'm sure you recognise this lovely melody as 'Stranger in Paradise'. But did you know that the original theme is from the Polovetsian Dance No. 2 by Borodin? So many of the tunes of our well-known popular songs were actually written by the great masters—like these familiar themes..."

In 1953, Williams was awarded a Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for his role as Chief Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder on Broadway. When Alfred Hitchcock took over the script to make a film of the play in 1954, he cast Williams in the same role. He also appeared in Hitchcock's The Paradine Case with Gregory Peck as a barrister, and as an insurance company representative in To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.