William Sylvester
Birthday: Born in 1922-01-31 in Oakland, California, USA
Deathday: 1995-01-25
William Sylvester (January 31, 1922 – January 25, 1995) was an American TV and film actor. His most famous film credit was Dr. Heywood Floyd in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968). Born in Oakland, California and married at one time to the British actress Veronica Hurst, he moved to England after the Second World War and became a staple of British B films at a time when American and Canadian actors were much in demand in order to give indigenous films some appeal in the US. As a result, he gained top billing in one of his very first films, House of Blackmail (1953), directed by the veteran filmmaker Maurice Elvey, for whom he also made What Every Woman Wants the following year. He also starred in such minor films as The Stranger Came Home (1954, for Hammer), Dublin Nightmare (1958), Offbeat (1960), Information Received (1961), Incident at Midnight, Ring of Spies and Blind Corner (all 1963). There were also lead roles in four British horror films: Gorgo (1960), Devil Doll (1963), Devils of Darkness (1964) and The Hand of Night (1966). Among his many TV credits were a 1959 BBC version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (playing Mark Antony), The Saint, The Baron, The High Chaparral, Harry O and The Six Million Dollar Man. His later films included You Only Live Twice (1967) and, back in the USA after his prominent role for Kubrick, Busting (1973), The Hindenburg (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). He died in Sacramento, California in 1995, aged 72.
TV Credits
Green Acres
Character:
Green Acres is an American sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a rural country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, the series was first broadcast on CBS, from September 15, 1965 to April 27, 1971. Receiving solid ratings during its six-year run, Green Acres was cancelled in 1971 as part of the "rural purge" by CBS. The sitcom has been in syndication and is available in DVD and VHS releases. In 1997, the two-part ep...
The F.B.I.
Character: Tom Barber
The F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only....
Quincy, M.E.
Character: Joe Crawford
Los Angeles County medical examiner Quincy routinely engages in police investigations....
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Character: Lt. General Preston Myers
20th-century astronaut Buck Rogers awakens in the 25th century after a freak accident puts him in suspended animation for 500 years. Upon returning to Earth and discovering the planet is recovering from a nuclear war, Buck uses his combat skills and ingenuity to protect Earth and fight evil throughout the galaxy alongside starfighter pilot Colonel Wilma Deering and robot companion Twiki....
Marcus Welby, M.D.
Character: Paul Berwick
Marcus Welby, M.D. is an American medical drama television program that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969, to July 29, 1976. It starred Robert Young as a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner and James Brolin as the younger doctor he often worked with, and was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell. The pilot, A Matter of Humanities, had aired as an ABC Movie of the Week on March 26, 1969....
The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries
Character:
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries is a television series which aired for three seasons on ABC. The series starred Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy as amateur sleuth brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively, and Pamela Sue Martin as girl detective Nancy Drew. The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries was unusual in that it often dealt with the characters individually, in an almost anthological style. That is, some episodes featured only the Hardy Boys and others only Nancy Drew....
The Saint
Character: Foots Fortunati
Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need....
Cannon
Character:
Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976. The primary protagonist is the title character, private detective Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad. He also appeared on two episodes of Barnaby Jones. Cannon is the first Quinn Martin-produced series to be aired on a network other than ABC. A "revival" television film, The Return of Frank Cannon, was aired on November 1, 1980. In total, there were 124 episodes....
Harry O
Character:
After being shot in the line of duty, Harry Orwell was forced to retire from the San Diego Police Department. To supplement his police pension, Harry runs a private detective agency out of his beach house... The series starred David Janssen and was executive produced by Jerry Thorpe....
The Sentimental Agent
Character:
The Sentimental Agent is a television drama series spin-off from Man of the World. It was produced in the United Kingdom in 1963 by Associated Television and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It stars Carlos Thompson as Argentinian Carlos Varela, a successful import-export agent based in London. The series ran for 13 one-hour monochrome episodes. Some of the episodes were edited into a 1962 feature film Our Man in the Caribbean....
Switch
Character: Ellis
Switch is an American action-adventure, tongue-in-cheek detective series starring Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner, who work as private eyes, for a deceptive sting operation. It was broadcast on the CBS network for three seasons between September 9, 1975 and August 20, 1978, bumping the Hawaii Five-O detective series to Friday nights....
The High Chaparral
Character: Jack Simmons
The High Chaparral is an American Western-themed television series starring Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell which aired on NBC from 1967 to 1971. The series, made by Xanadu Productions in association with NBC Productions, was created by David Dortort, who had previously created the hit Bonanza for the network. The theme song was also written and conducted by Bonanza scorer David Rose, who also scored the two-hour pilot....
McCloud
Character:
Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud of the small western town of Taos, New Mexico is assigned to the metropolitan New York City Police Department (NYPD) as a special investigator....
Gemini Man
Character: Leonard Driscoll
Sam Casey is an agent for INTERSECT, a government think-tank and operations center specializing in secret missions. While on a diving assignment, Sam was affected by the radiation from an underwater explosion. The radiation rendered him invisible, but INTERSECT devised a way to control his invisibility, by fitting him with a computerized watch that kept him visible. He could, however, shut it off, and become invisible again, for short periods of time. If he did this for more than 15 minutes in a...
Big Shamus, Little Shamus
Character:
Big Shamus, Little Shamus is an American detective drama series that aired on CBS from September 29, 1979 to October 6, 1979. The Series focused on Arnie Sutter, the veteran house detective at The Ansonia Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and his thirteen-year-old son Max, who solved crimes at the hotel casino relating to legalized gambling....
What Really Happened to the Class of '65?
Character:
Sam Ashley, a graduate of 1965 class of Bret Harte High School, who was now a teacher at the school, served as the narrator describing what had happened to his fellow graduates in the decade since they had graduated....
The Saint
Character: Ralph Damien
Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need....
The Magician
Character: Peter Hayden
The Magician is an American television series that ran during the 1973–1974 season. It starred Bill Bixby as stage illusionist Anthony "Tony" Blake, a playboy philanthropist who used his skills to solve difficult crimes as needed. In the series pilot, the character was instead named Anthony Dorian. The name change was due to a conflict with the name of a real life stage magician....
Banacek
Character: Dr. Stahl
Banacek is an American detective TV series starring George Peppard that aired on the NBC network from 1972 to 1974. The series was part of the rotating NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie anthology. It alternated in its time slot with several other shows but was the only one to last beyond its first season....
The Six Million Dollar Man
Character: Frederick Collins
Follow the adventures of Steve Austin, cybernetically enhanced astronaut turned secret agent, employed by the OSI, under the command of Oscar Goldman and supervised by the scientist who created his cybernetics, Rudy Wells. Steve uses the superior strength and speed provided by his bionic arm and legs, and the enhanced vision provided by his artificial eye, to fight enemy agents, aliens, mad scientists, and a wide variety of other villains....
The Six Million Dollar Man
Character: Admiral Prescott
Follow the adventures of Steve Austin, cybernetically enhanced astronaut turned secret agent, employed by the OSI, under the command of Oscar Goldman and supervised by the scientist who created his cybernetics, Rudy Wells. Steve uses the superior strength and speed provided by his bionic arm and legs, and the enhanced vision provided by his artificial eye, to fight enemy agents, aliens, mad scientists, and a wide variety of other villains....
The High Chaparral
Character: Lafe Croswell
The High Chaparral is an American Western-themed television series starring Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell which aired on NBC from 1967 to 1971. The series, made by Xanadu Productions in association with NBC Productions, was created by David Dortort, who had previously created the hit Bonanza for the network. The theme song was also written and conducted by Bonanza scorer David Rose, who also scored the two-hour pilot....
Movie Credits
2001: A Space Odyssey
Character: Dr. Heywood Floyd
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer....
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Character: Tom Henderson
A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own....
Gorgo
Character: Sam Slade
Greedy sailors capture a giant lizard off the coast of Ireland and sell it to a London circus. Then its mother shows up....
Devil Doll
Character: Mark English
An evil hyponotist/ventriloquist plots to gain an heiress' millions....
The Hindenburg
Character: Luftwaffe Colonel
Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit....
First Family
Character: TV Commentator Howard
When the First Daughter is kidnapped by an African tribe, the President must do what he can to keep them from sacrificing her....
The Hand of Night
Character: Paul Carver
A tourist travelling through Morocco discovers an ancient curse and must choose between light and dark....
2001: The Making of a Myth
Character: Dr. Heywood R. Floyd (archive footage) (uncredited)
The making of Stanley Kubrick's classic space epic, presented by James Cameron, including unseen footage....
Devils of Darkness
Character: Paul Baxter
A secret vampire cult, which has its headquarters beneath the town cemetery, searches for victims for its human sacrifice rituals....
Busting
Character: Mr. Weldman
Defying orders to lay-off the case, two Los Angeles vice-squad cops go after a local mobster and use unorthodox methods to achieve results....
Give Us This Day
Character: Giovanni
Exiled from Hollywood due to the blacklist, director Edward Dmytryk briefly operated in England in the late 1940s. Though filmed in its entirety in London, Dmytryk's Give Us This Day is set in New York during the depression. Fellow blacklistee Sam Wanamaker is starred as the head of an Italian immigrant family struggling to survive the economic crisis....
Blind Corner
Character: Paul Gregory
Paul Gregory (William Sylvester) is an accomplished composer despite his blindness, and his beautiful wife Anne (Barbara Shelley) seems to be the perfect supporting wife. But unknown to Paul, she is having a passionate affair with Ricky (Alexander Davion), a struggling artist. Keen to support her artist lover and give them more time to make love, she persuades Paul to commission Ricky to paint her portrait. But Paul senses their affection for each other, and threatens to cut Anne off without a p...
The Stranger Came Home
Character: Philip Vickers
Someone knocked out a man and left him for dead during a fishing trip in Portugal. That someone is either his fetching wife, or two business partners, all sporting guilty faces after his unexpected return. Two more murders and a frame-up befall the quartet before an inspector closes the case....
Offbeat
Character: Layton / Steve Ross
When Scotland Yard finds themselves up against a brick wall in tracking down a vicious gang of thieves and bank robbers, they call in Layton, a loner from MI5 to work his way into the gang and help bring them down....
High Tide at Noon
Character: Alec Douglas
After returning home to a rugged island near Nova Scotia, Joanna, daughter of the local bigwig, struggles to choose between three eligible bachelors -- the rebel, the steadfast friend and the poetry-quoting newcomer. As the local lobster supply dwindles due to overfishing, the island's inhabitants encounter economic difficulties....
Portrait of Alison
Character: Dave Forrester
An actress and an artist are linked by his brother to deadly smugglers sought by Scotland Yard....
House of Blackmail
Character: Jimmy
A blackmailer is murdered, and the police find that there is a long list of suspects who wanted to see him dead....
Dublin Nightmare
Character: John Kevin
Loot goes missing in robbery double-cross. Gang members, an ex-lover and a handsome stranger are left to sort it out....
Whirlpool
Character: Hermann
The ex-girlfriend of a German fugitive hides with the captain and crew of a ship on the Rhine....
Information Received
Character: Rick Hogan
Drama of an underworld double-cross as a man and woman set a death trap from which only one could possibly escape....
Ring of Spies
Character: Gordon Lonsdale
The film is based on the actual events of the Portland Spy Ring trial in the U.K. A disgruntled Navy Clerk is transferred to a secret research establishment and is subsequently black-mailed/paid by Czech intelligence to procure secrets for them. He seduces the secretary who controls the most secret documents, and they enjoy the fruits of their treachery until the British authorities begin to close in on them....
The 9th Wonder of the World: The Making of 'Gorgo'
Character: Sam Slade (archive footage)
Retrospective documentary on the making of Gorgo (1961)....
Incident at Midnight
Character: Vince Warren
In a late night chemist a shot bank robber has been taken for treatment, and to rendezvous with the gang leader....
The Yellow Balloon
Character: Len Turner
A young boy is blackmailed by a crook who saw him unwittingly cause his friend's death....
Roger Moore: A Matter of Class
Character: Self (archive footage)
The story of actor Roger Moore, including clips from his movies, television shows and interviews with the actor, his family and acquaintances....
Riding with Death
Character: Leonard Driscoll
Agent Sam Casey is in a satellite explosion and the radiation turns him invisible. He gets a watch that keeps him visible, and he uses it to switch from visible to invisible. He is assigned to transport a chemical called Tripolydine, which is purported to be the most efficient fuel; when the cover is blown on that and he uncovers and stops the Tripolydine fraud, he must then stop a terrorist from blowing up race cars....
The Syndicate
Character: Burt Hickey
Two vehicles lurch across the east African bush, carrying an ill-assorted party of prospectors who have formed a syndicate to search for uranium deposits. As their four-week window for digging starts to close, trouble soon starts amongst the group and there are some sinister 'accidents'... It is obvious that one of the party is trying to sabotage the expedition; but who?...
The Challengers
Character: Brad York
Racers compete in the Grand Prix....
What Every Woman Wants
Character: Jim Barnes
Young couple Mark and Jane are forced to thrash out marital problems in a borrowed room in Jane’s parents’ tiny house. Meanwhile, Jane’s cousin, Jim - back from the war in Korea - and Mark’s involvement in left-wing politics place further strain on the relationship. Can grandfather help?...
Appointment in London
Character: Mac
Wing-commander Tim Mason leads a squadron of Lancaster bombers on almost nightly raids from England. Having flown eighty-seven missions he will shortly be retiring from flying, but the strain is showing. He tries to make sure his men concentrate only on their job and so keeps women away from the base, but then he himself meets naval officer Eve Canyon....
Red and Blue
Character: Trumpeter
Musical short, filmed for the abandoned portmanteau film Red, White and Zero (1967)....
Albert R.N.
Character: Texas
The British inmates of a POW camp think they have an informer among them after several escape attempts fail. One of the prisoners constructs a dummy which they christen "Albert" and use at roll call in order to foil the German guards....
They Were Not Divided
Character: American Soldier (uncredited)
The film begins in a WW II training depot of a British Guards armoured regiment where recruits from many walks of life learn to survive the strict discipline and training together before going into battle in tanks. There is a cameo appearance by the real Sgt. Major Brittain who was famous in the British guards regiments....
The Lawyer
Character: Paul Harrison
Tony Petrocelli, a bright young lawyer practicing in the rich cattle town of Baker, becomes embroiled in a murder case....
Heaven Can Wait
Character: Nuclear Reporter
Joe Pendleton is a quarterback preparing to lead his team to the superbowl when he is almost killed in an accident. An overanxious angel plucks him to heaven only to discover that he wasn't ready to die, and that his body has been cremated. A new body must be found, and that of a recently-murdered millionaire is chosen. His wife and accountant—the murderers—are confused by this development, as he buys the L.A. Rams in order to once again quarterback them into the Superbowl....