Biography

William Bowers was born on January 17, 1916 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Gunfighter (1950), Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) and The Godfather Part II (1974). He was married to Marjorie Evelyn Wilson, Dixie Louise Cassill and Kathleen Anne Harris. He died on March 27, 1987 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

He is perhaps best remembered, not for one of his many screenplays, but for his debut role as a film actor - as the Senate Committee Chairman in "The Godfather, Part II"; a small part, the first of just three small roles in his long career.

He was once introduced to Cole Porter, which greatly embarrassed him, as he had co-written the screenplay for "Night And Day", the heavily fictionalized and sentimentalized film version of Porter's life released in 1946. Porter had been very disdainful of the film, Bowers knew, and he began their conversation by profusely apologizing for it. To his surprise, Porter most charmingly assured him that he'd loved the film and thanked him for contributing to it. Baffled by this (whilst also impressed by Porter's gentlemanly attitude), Bowers asked a friend rhetorically how on earth he could have liked so bad a film. The friend reminded him that about twenty Porter songs had been used in the movie, "and he got paid for every one of them!".

Oscar-nominated American screenwriter, a former journalist. Specialized in writing westerns and comedy westerns.

Served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.

Father of Anthony Bowers.