His voice was born to become K.I.T.T. it is a once in a life time never to be surpassed iconic combo for a franchise; like Christopher Reeve for Superman, Lynda Carter for Wonder Woman, Darin Mc Gavin for Kolchak, David Rasche for Sledge Hammer, and Bruce Lee and Van Williams for Kato and Green Hornet. I don't ever want to see or hear other versions as they will never be as good.
That first image must be from Zoo Story. I once heard the play on a record. And below that The Graduate. But it's funny when your first memory is his Captain Nice from when you were a kid.
Now We Know What Our Personal Birthday Present Next Month is Gonna Be Department:
Oh I'm a next monther too but can't wait. Me smells an imminent trip or two to the Barnes & Noble down the street for a marathon read-in.
Always one of my favorites, even before 1776 launched him into super-fave status, I first saw Mr. Daniels when I was 14 years old, in Captain Nice AND The Graduate...both in the same year!
That's a pretty hard one to top!
One of my very favorite Daniels moments is his role as Austin Tucker in The Paralax View.
Lines, huh? Do you know what you are? MALADJUSTED.
You've been doing lines, I guess. Anyway, you obviously don't know the movie.
Here's some others delivered by Daniels:
"You want a draft beer?"
"The Bullocks, next door, real right-wingers. American flag up every day, real fascists. Ought to be gassed. You know the type."
"Darn it, Bing. I told you not to play around with my guns. No, I do not want that in the house. That is my car gun. My house gun is already in the house."
Loved his appearance in OH GOD! It was brief and with John Denver, but he was awesome. What a voice this man has! He played the Supermarket Big Boss where Denver's character worked.
Love William Daniels. Saw him 3 times in the original cast of 1776. Amazing performance. Should have won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical, but, because the Tony rules only allowed Best Actor nominations for actors whose names appeared above the title, Daniels, whose name was below the title, did not qualify. He was eventually nominated for Best Featured Actor, but refused the nomination, and the man who played Richard Henry Lee was nominated, and even won.
That's tragic. Because Daniels carried that show. And the movie. (At least most of the original cast were also in the movie, which ended up bowdlerized, but was eventually released with most of the excised footage restored.)
That's George Maharis standing behind Daniels in the photo from the stage production of ZOO STORY. But I seem to remember it was Mark Richman who originated the role. (Richman is probably best known to Golden Agers as the love interest for Gary Cooper's daughter in FRIENDLY PERSUASION.)
As he revealed in a recent book signing in Los Angeles,
“There’s a little bit of you in every role – or there should be. You try to find a part of you that you can use … I think in 1776 it was very right for me. It was assertive, it had a certain strength to it – you were on all night long. It was very declamatory – they were members of Congress. It wasn’t conversational – they stood up and they TALKED to get a sympathetic people around them. That suited me very well.
I was very happy with that role. Probably – I played it for such a long time – it’s probably my favorite role, John Adams”.
Oh, and John, you’re absolutely accurate about his turning down that nitwit ‘Best Supporting’ nod for his seminal stage perfin the original “1776”. We’re trying to locate the clip where he discusses this but, inna matrix nutshell, Mr. Daniels resolutely resistedthe producer who wanted to put his name in the Tony arena under that insulting designation since John Adams was on-stage virtually the entire play.
Which is where Mr. Daniels' magnificent reply to the producer (boldly emblazoned above at the top) originated
As to that, we’ve always loved this DELIGHTFUL seg where he (or the savvy writers) slyly inserted some of his incomparable stage Congressional alter-ego’s lines in his usual deft manner …
And, of course, there’s also his introduction in THIS (with Dave Grusin’s immortal intoxicating theme):
[ Also, Howard, when’s yer Buffdey (not Susan Ours is the 13th ]
That credit- below-the-title rule of the Tonys also created weird circumstances in which Tom Bosley of "Fiorello!" and Tammy Grimes of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" both won as supporting performers....even though they played their respective title characters!
Maybe because of that voice, Daniels was always to make a small part memorable. Remember him exhorting Dustin Hoffman with one word, "Plastics?" And his role in THE PARALLAX VIEW had a tight-lipped determination, especially accompanied by that bulky bodyguard. And he was able to make an officious know-it-all sympathetic in A THOUSAND CLOWNS.
Lines, huh? Do you know what you are? MALADJUSTED.
You've been doing lines, I guess. Anyway, you obviously don't know the movie.
You guess right. Consider your own wounds, Mr. RoryR, for you are a practitioner! ARE YOU NOT?!
The line is from A Thousand Clowns. You obviously don't know the movie.
Which Johnny here does. And Mr. A is spot-on regarding Mr. Daniels's tremendous supporting performance both on stage and screen as Albert. And perhaps Mr. A may recall he and his stage Sandra, Miss Dennis, teaming up as another bickering couple in an episode of Naked City?
PS I wouldn't know Miss Dennis's stage performance m'self but Miss Harris sure carried the role mighty fine in the flick...
I love Barbara Harris. A woman of tremendous talent and presence, but who was so relentlessly insecure as to need more or less constant reassurance to go out and perform. This led to her often skipping performances, so that there was always the suspicion she might not appear. Nevertheless, she won Tonys for both the musicals she starred in on Broadway: ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER and THE APPLE TREE.
I was lucky enough to see her in APPLE TREE, in which she was very funny. But she also projected a very real vulnerability, showing the sensitivity under her often wry humor. She made a few memorable films, and is now, I understand, an acting teacher in the Midwest.
Daniels was her nerdy boyfriend in the Broadway ON A CLEAR DAY, where he sang to her about the joys of retirement, in "When We're Sixty-five." You just don't find fun songs like that anymore.
I love Barbara Harris as well. My all-time favorite moment of hers is the final scene in Family Plot (1976). It seems to me so perfect that Hitchcock ended his final film with a wink and a big smile, and Miss Harris did it so beautifully.
