Clarence Williams III: Underappreciated

By VeTalle Fusilier

"Wakey wakey, baby", it's one of my favorite lines from the movie 52 Pick Up. Perhaps you have seen him lately as Mr. Boxer in the family drama Constellation, or fright fans saw him in Tales from the Hood. We can catch him this week again in the highly anticipated American Gangster as Bumpy Johnson. Clarence Williams III is a great actor, respected by his fellow thespians and critics, and delivers image gifts we should cherish.


He was the first actor I saw play a cop with an Afro, when he broke new ground as Lincoln Hayes ("Linc") on ABC's The Mod Squad.

Those who were too young for Mod Squad likely first caught a glimpse of his brilliance as Prince's tortured father in Purple Rain. But he has always been around, staying in our minds as the characters he portrayed, not as Clarence, because that's what great actors do ­ bury themselves in the part.

He has been in Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, The Highwayman, Twin Peaks, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. We have seen him recently in Everybody Hates Chris, and in a recurring role as Philby Cross in the Mystery Woman movie series on the Hallmark Channel. Adept in front of the cameras or on stage, Williams starred in Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, receiving a Tony nomination.

Williams is a city kid. Born in New York City, New York, in a jazz family, grandchild of Eva Taylor and Clarence Williams, the pianist and founder of the largest black music publishing company in its day. We can relax, knowing that we exert influence in the future, because of the comforting wisdom of the cookie baking Oracle in The Matrix, actress Gloria Foster, his departed wife.


Certainly his life's work is worthy of a serious uplifting, but as Wesley Snipes' and Michael Wright's tragic, drug addicted father in Sugar Hill, he turned in a Oscar worthy performance. It's an underrated movie overall, but he is the best thing about it, without question.

It is highlighted by the scene in which he knowingly overdoses himself while declaring his love for his son, who gave him the heroin.

Watch it. Listen to him go, "Woooo-wooo". Anyone who has felt an overwhelming drug rush is sold right there. He deserved the Oscar for best supporting actor, and he should have been nominated. But at the time, Hollywood was nervous (and so were we) about the Black image on film, --deaf to great performances, unless associated with heroic personification. Fear?
Overcompensation? That was definitely then. My how things have changed.

Has the guilt pendulum swung to the other extreme, or are we just more comfortable now with our own imperfections? Denzel can win an Oscar, not for Hurricane but for playing an angel dust smoking, crooked cop. Halle can win for letting a white man "make me feel good" (and we'll see how right they really want to be if she gets a nomination for her stellar performance in Things We Lost In The Fire"). Forest Whitaker can win, not for giving life to the complex self- destructive genius of Bird, but for playing killer and dictator Idi Amin.

The year Williams would have been eligible for Sugar Hill, the other nominees for supporting actor were Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, James Cromwell in Babe, Ed Harris in Apollo 13, Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys and Tim Roth in Rob Roy.

With all respect to Williams¹ fellow actors, at least three of those things are not like others. So as long as we¹re celebrating bad guys, let¹s give credit where credit is due. We the people nominate Clarence Williams, III to receive an Oscar retroactively.