ACTOR
Nicol Williamson
- Known for
- Spawn (1997), The Exorcist III (1990), Return to Oz (1985), Robin and Marian (1976)
43 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Nicol Williamson is an actor best known for Spawn, The Exorcist III and Return to Oz.
All facts (43)
- #001
When Nicol Williamson appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet, directed by Trevor Nunn at Stratford-upon-Avon in the 1974-1975 season, he disliked his co-star Helen Mirren, with whom he was having an affair. The feeling was mutual. John Boorman, director of Excalibur (1981), deliberately cast them as the rival roles of Merlin and Morgana despite both actors' objections, believing that the contempt they felt for each other in real life would create more tension on screen.
- #002
Nicol Williamson died in relative poverty. Only six people attended his funeral. He was cremated and his ashes were given to family or friends.
- #003
Nicol Williamson did not want any fuss made over his death and had no interest in publicity, so his son Luke announced a month later that he had died.
- #004
Nicol Williamson smoked 80 cigarettes a day.
- #005
According to Kenneth Tynan's profile of Williamson, his erratic behaviour during the North American tour of Hamlet led one of the cast members to publicly apologise to the audience in Boston.
- #006
In 1991, appearing on Broadway as the ghost of John Barrymore in Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet, Williamson shocked audiences when he periodically broke character and mocked his co-star and the play with well-publicised tantrums. At one point, during a demanding scene in which he and Evan Handler fought with heavy prop swords, Williamson decided to improvise and clumsily nicked Handler's ear, prompting the young actor to leave the stage in anger (this later became the basis of a 1995 story about an episode of NYPD Blue). Despite good reviews, the play ran for only 100 performances.
- #007
When Roman Polanski was casting Macbeth (1971), screenwriter Kenneth Tynan suggested Williamson for the lead. Tynan was a great admirer of Williamson, but Polanski turned him down because he felt Williamson lacked sexual appeal. Williamson later played Macbeth in London, in New York and for the BBC.
- #008
Nicol Williamson hated appearing on television programmes and claimed he had no memory of ever working on Columbo.
- #009
Although Nicol Williamson was known for being difficult, the opposite was true on the set of Venom, where Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski drove director Piers Haggard so mad that Williamson promised the director he would be the opposite.
- #010
In the summer of 1973, Nicol Williamson played the lead in Mike Nichols's star-making production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, for which he won a 1974 Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award nomination. The other actors included Julie Christie, George C. Scott (also nominated for a Tony), Conrad Bain, Lillian Gish, Barnard Hughes and Cathleen Nesbitt. Nichols was also nominated for a Tony for Best Director.
- #011
Prime Minister Harold Wilson's favourite Hamlet was Nicol Williamson's. Wilson praised his performance to President Richard Nixon, and Nixon invited Williamson to give a one-man show at the White House.
- #012
Early in his acting career, Nicol Williamson was regarded as a hell-raiser, mainly because of his drinking and because he was difficult to work with.
- #013
Nicol Williamson was known to be an admirer of his fellow actor Robert Shaw.
- #014
In 1971, Nicol Williamson recorded an album of country songs.
- #015
Some of the actor's insecurity can be traced to his childhood. Nicol Williamson was separated from his family during the Second World War as a child and claimed he felt abandoned by them.
- #016
On The Looking Glass War (1969), Nicol Williamson quickly took over the lead role after Richard Burton, then the highest-paid actor in the world, was fired early in the shoot by director Tony Richardson. Burton had played a scene requiring him to walk along the pavement and turn a corner. After one take he did not return, and Richardson, reportedly concerned about his alcoholism, dismissed him. It was believed that Richardson had wanted Williamson for the role from the start, but Burton was the bigger star. It was generally felt that Williamson, then in his early thirties, was too young to play a middle-aged man in love with a much younger woman, though he had played a middle-aged lawyer in Inadmissible Evidence (1968) to great acclaim at an even younger age. Williamson's reviews were mostly favourable, but the film was criticised and failed at the box office.
- #017
Nicol Williamson had a son, Luke (born 1973), with the actress and journalist Jill Townsend.
- #018
Nicol Williamson was originally set to play Colonel Kane in William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration (1980), but he withdrew at the last minute and was replaced by Stacy Keach.
- #019
At one point, Nicol Williamson was regarded as one of the finest classical actors of his era.
- #020
He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama.
- #021
He won the 1969 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance for his role as Hamlet on Broadway in 1969. Five years later he won another Drama Desk Award for "Uncle Vanya." Interestingly, both productions were directed by Oscar winners (Tony Richardson, who won the Best Director Oscar for Tom Jones in 1963, and Mike Nichols, who won the Best Director Oscar for The Graduate in 1967).
- #022
He admitted that he suffered from a fear of death.
- #023
He took on the role of King Henry VIII in the Broadway musical "Rex."
- #024
After moving to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in the late seventies to escape media attention, he preferred the company of musicians in the years that followed.
- #025
He spent much of his adult life in the Netherlands.
- #026
He enjoyed the anonymity of spending time in London bars.
- #027
Interest in Nicol Williamson was revived thanks to several biographies of the actor published recently.
- #028
He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor (Dramatic) twice: in 1966 for his performance in "Inadmissible Evidence," which he recreated in the film version of John Osborne's work of the same name, Inadmissible Evidence (1968), and in 1974 for his revival of "Uncle Vanya." In 1966 he lost to Hal Holbrook (winner for "Mark Twain Tonight"), and in 1974 to Michael Moriarty, winner for "Find Your Way Home."
- #029
During his national service, the actor served as a gunner in the Airborne Division.
- #030
His performance as Hamlet in the 1960s was hailed as one of the leading interpretations in theatre history.
- #031
According to various sources, the actor was not very eager to take on film roles. Williamson was prone to abruptly quitting film work.
- #032
Throughout his career he openly criticized most actors.
- #033
He turned down a six-figure salary for the role of Enobarbus in Charlton Heston's film of William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," a role that Eric Porter ultimately played.
- #034
Director Jack Gold was one of the few people who could work successfully with Nicol Williamson.
- #035
In the early 1960s he was a member of the Dundee Repertory Company.
- #036
Nicol was an avid boxer.
- #037
Nicol Williamson felt more at ease when he was part of a cabaret show.
- #038
During the curtain call of the musical "Rex," Williamson slapped fellow cast member Jim Litten.
- #039
During his military service, Nicol Williamson made 13 parachute jumps.
- #040
Before Nicol Williamson turned 2, his family moved from Scotland to Birmingham, where he later worked alongside his father in a foundry.
- #041
Nicol Williamson was born on exactly the same date as Walter "Chekov" Koenig, known from "Star Trek."
- #042
Nicol Williamson joined the Dundee Repertory company and appeared in more than 30 of its productions.
- #043
Nicol Williamson was born at 03:45 BST.
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