The Man Who Made Our Family Room Feel Like Home: Remembering Hal Williams
Every family has a show. For ours, it was Sanford and Son.
It was my dad's favorite sitcom, hands down. On any given night, you'd find all of us packed into the family room, watching episode after episode, laughing at Fred Sanford's schemes and waiting for that familiar clang of the truck door.
It wasn't just a show we watched. It was a ritual. A reason to be together. One of those memories that just sticks, the kind our family still brings up and still won't ever forget.
This week, we lost one of the people who made those nights possible.
Hal Williams, Star of Sanford and Son, Dies at 91
Hal Williams, born Halroy Candis Williams, passed away on July 15 at his home in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 91. His manager told reporters he died of natural causes, just days after returning from a trip to Ohio, where he had reunited with his old Sanford and Son co-star Howard Platt for a fan celebration of the show.
An Unexpected Hometown Connection
Here's the part that stopped us in our tracks.
All this time, we had no idea Hal Williams was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, the same city where our family sat together night after night watching him on that screen.
He even attended East High School, the very same school my niece went to.
A man whose work filled our family room with laughter turns out to share a hometown, and a school, with us. You don't expect a connection like that to show up decades later, but there it was.
Before Hollywood: A Late Start on Purpose
Williams didn't chase acting right away. Before his career took off, he worked as a juvenile corrections officer, a social worker, and later a postal worker at LAX, even continuing his overnight postal shifts for years after Sanford and Son became a hit, just to keep his finances steady while he got his footing.
He got his first taste of performing in community theater in Ohio in the early 1960s. It wasn't until 1968, after his marriage ended, that he decided to leap. As he put it in one interview, he sat down and asked himself what he really wanted to do "before the maker comes and gets me." The answer was acting, and he drove to California in 48 hours to chase it.
The Role That Made Him a Household Name
Williams landed guest spots on shows like Dan August, That Girl, Cannon, and Kung Fu before his big break arrived in 1972. That's when he was cast as Officer Smith, better known as Smitty, on Sanford and Son.
Smitty formed one of the show's most beloved running gags alongside his partner, Officer "Hoppy" Hopkins, played by Howard Platt. Hoppy would deliver stiff, overly formal police jargon, and Smitty would calmly translate it into something Fred Sanford and his son Lamont could actually understand. Williams later said he helped the writers develop the bit himself after it got laughs in a rehearsal. He appeared in 20 episodes of the series between 1972 and 1976, and reprised the role in the short-lived follow-up series, Sanford.
A Career That Spanned Comedy and Drama
Williams was proud of never being boxed into a single role, even though the comedic parts made him famous. Over a career spanning more than five decades, his credits included:
Harley Foster on The Waltons (1973-1980)
A supporting role in Roots: The Next Generations (1979)
The drill sergeant in the film Private Benjamin (1980), a role he reprised on the CBS sitcom adaptation from 1981 to 1983
Lester Jenkins, the patient husband and father, on 227 (1985-1990), opposite Marla Gibbs
Rudy, Sinbad's father, on The Sinbad Show (1993-1994)
Guest and recurring appearances on L.A. Law, Moesha, and A Black Lady Sketch Show
A supporting role in Denzel Washington's Flight (2012)
A role as Howard Jones, Bernie Mac's father, in Guess Who (2005), opposite Ashton Kutcher
A guest role on the Matlock reboot, one of his final credits
He also appeared in Paul Schrader's Hardcore (1979) and The Rookie (1990) with Clint Eastwood, proof that his range went well beyond the sitcom work he was best known for. As he once said, in all those comedies, he wasn't the funny guy; he was the straight guy in the madness, and that steadiness is exactly what made his characters feel so real.
A Legacy Beyond the Screen
Off camera, Williams was a board member of the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre. He also established the Mark K.A. Williams Memorial Scholarship Foundation in memory of his son Mark, who died at age 20 during a camping trip. The foundation supports students of color pursuing college degrees in television and communications. This legacy carries his son's memory forward and reflects the same quiet generosity people remember him for.
Why Hal Williams Mattered to Our Family
For our family, he'll always be Smitty. The guy who showed up on our screen and somehow became part of our own story, long before we knew just how close that story really was to home.
Rest easy, Hal. Thank you for the laughs, the memories, and for the surprise connection to home we never saw coming. Columbus is proud of you, and so are we.
