\n<\/p>\n
Samm-Art Williams, who made his mark in several fields \u2014 as an executive producer of the sitcom \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,\u201d as an actor on both stage and screen and as a Tony-nominated playwright for \u201cHome,\u201d died on Monday in Burgaw, N.C. He was 78.<\/p>\n
His death was confirmed by his cousin Carol Brown. She did not cite a cause.<\/p>\n
An imposing 6-foot-8 (a lefty, he once served as a sparring partner to Muhammad Ali), Mr. Williams appeared in films including Brian De Palma\u2019s Hitchcock homage, \u201cDressed to Kill\u201d<\/a> (1980), and the Coen brothers\u2019 neo-noir, \u201cBlood Simple\u201d<\/a> (1984). He had a memorable turn as Jim in the 1986 adaptation of \u201cAdventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/a>,\u201d part of PBS\u2019s \u201cAmerican Playhouse\u201d series.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Committed to expanding the Black presence in Hollywood, he was both a writer and an executive producer on \u201cFresh Prince,\u201d the hit 1990s NBC comedy starring Will Smith as a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who moves in with his aunt and uncle in the moneyed hills of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He also served as a writer and a producer on the television shows \u201cMartin\u201d and \u201cFrank\u2019s Place.\u201d He was nominated for two Emmy Awards \u2014 for his work as a writer on \u201cMotown Returns to the Apollo\u201d in 1985 and a producer of \u201cFrank\u2019s Place\u201d in 1988.<\/p>\n Raised in Burgaw, a former railroad town north of Wilmington, N.C., he moved to New York in 1973 to pursue a career in acting. It was his wistfulness for his small Southern hometown that inspired \u201cHome,\u201d a production of the celebrated Negro Ensemble Company that opened at the St. Marks Playhouse in Manhattan six years later before moving to Broadway.<\/p>\n The play, which is being revived on Broadway by the Roundabout Theater Company<\/a>, tells the story of a young Black farmer and master raconteur, Cephus Miles, in the fictional small town of Cross Roads, N.C.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Jailed for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War, Cephus moves to an unnamed Northern city, where his life spirals downward before he returns home to find redemption.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The play evolved from a poem<\/a> Mr. Williams wrote, as a tribute to his mother, on a Greyhound bus when he was on the way home for Christmas.<\/p>\n \u201cIn New York, I was lonely and missing the South,\u201d he recalled in a 2010 interview with The Chicago Sun-Times. \u201cBut I knew I couldn\u2019t go home, because I hadn\u2019t achieved anything yet. The idea for the play came out of that longing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHome\u201d came to be regarded as a classic of Black theater.<\/p>\n Mel Gussow praised the play<\/a> in a review of the original production in The New York Times, writing, \u201cIn all respects \u2014 writing, direction and performance \u2014 this is one of the happiest theatrical events of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Gussow admired Mr. Williams\u2019s lyricism<\/a>, noting that he was \u201cclearly in love with words, which in his hands become a rolling caravan of images.\u201d He also compared his use of dialect to that of Mark Twain.<\/p>\n Mr. Williams later said that his poetic approach to language was part of his mission to change racial perceptions in the eyes of the entertainment industry, as well as audiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s in the English language, it\u2019s for everybody,\u201d he said in a 1985 interview with The Los Angeles Times. \u201cThis may not be everybody\u2019s truth \u2014 producers, directors, audiences \u2014 but it is Samm-Art Williams\u2019s truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Samuel Arthur Williams was born on Jan. 20, 1946, in Philadelphia and raised in Burgaw by his mother, Valdosia Williams, a high school English and drama teacher, after her parents separated when he was a young boy.<\/p>\n \u201cTalk was everything there, good talk,\u201d he said of his small town in a 1982 interview with The Baltimore Sun. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t speak, they thought you were crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n The easy banter he heard growing up informed his later work. \u201cI\u2019m very interested in folk tale as an art form,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s very simple. Whether you\u2019re Black, white or green,\u201d a folk tale \u201chas no color.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Influenced by his mother, he showed an early interest in writing and acting and read \u201ceverything from Langston Hughes to Edgar Allan Poe,\u201d he told The Los Angeles Times. \u201c\u2018The Raven\u2019 was my greatest influence \u2014 in seeing<\/em> this bird, I saw what a great thing it was to be able to work on a person\u2019s mind with words.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After graduating from Morgan State University in Baltimore with a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science in 1968, he worked as a salesman in Philadelphia while studying with the New Freedom Theater, an influential Black company there.<\/p>\n After moving to New York, he began to carve out a career as a stage actor, appearing in several productions by the Negro Ensemble Company. By the late 1970s he was making inroads into Hollywood and appeared in \u201cThe Wanderers\u201d<\/a> (1979), based on the Richard Price novel about youth gangs in the Bronx in the early 1960s.<\/p>\n In the mid-1980s, Mr. Williams secured a role on an episode of the detective series \u201cThe New Mike Hammer,\u201d starring Stacy Keach. When he learned from a producer that the episode needed a rewrite, he offered to handle it himself, kicking off his career as a television writer and, eventually, producer.<\/p>\n No immediate family members survive.<\/p>\n Throughout his career, Mr. Williams acknowledged the color barriers he faced in Hollywood. But he also acknowledged the opportunities.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether I\u2019ll succeed or whether I\u2019ll hit a brick wall remains to be seen,\u201d he told The Los Angeles Times, \u201cbut nothing will change if we don\u2019t try to make it change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n