Biography

After completing his service in the U.S. Navy, character actor and comedian Ed Williams began his career as a voice actor in radio plays, produced by Lilian Fontaine (mother of stars Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine). He also sidelined as a salesman for KSJO Radio in San Jose. Having relocated to Los Angeles in 1955, Ed embarked on a lengthy tenure as a broadcasting and speech teacher, first at the Don Martin School of Radio and Television Arts in Hollywood, then, until his retirement in 1989, at Los Angeles City College.

Ed came to screen acting late in life, having successfully auditioned for the recurring role of lab scientist Ted Olsen in the excellent (though sadly short-lived) spoof series Police Squad! (1982), produced by the Abrahams, Zucker and Zucker team. Olsen was the inventor (who also demonstrated) some of the wacky gadgets featured in Police Squad, including the Swiss-army shoe, the anti-graffiti wall and the cufflink dart. Ed typically delivered his lines with a deadpan expression, for instance (to Leslie Nielsen's Lt. Frank Drebin): "As you know Frank, billions of years ago, our Earth was a molten mass. But for some reason, not understood by scientists, the earth cooled, forming a crust, a hard igneous shell. That's what we scientists call 'Rock'." The actor went on to reprise his Olsen character for the original Naked Gun trilogy of films, but subsequently found meatier roles hard to come by.

Ed Williams passed away on October 2 2025 at the ripe old age of 98.
- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis