(CNN) – Treat Williams, the veteran actor who starred in TV dramas “Blue Bloods” and “Everwood,” died Monday night after a motorcycle accident in Vermont, his former agent Barry McPherson told CNN.
He was 71 years old.
Treat Williams, Rex Smith and Melba Moore in 1986. Photo By John Barrett/PHOTOlink.net /MediaPunch /IPX
Born in Rowayton, Connecticut, Richard Treat Williams studied drama in college and moved to New York shortly after graduating. There he got the role of John Travola’s understudy in Grease and later replaced him as Danny Zuko.
Williams’ varied career included a role in director Milos Forman’s 1979 adaptation of the musical Hair, followed by a starring role with another high-profile director, Sidney Lumet, in the dark undercover crime drama Prince of the City.
Though Williams seemed destined to achieve big fame, his next few films didn’t live up to that initial promise, though he continued to work, including on a remake of the TV movie A Streetcar Named Desire and other TV movies in which he starred: Boxer Jack Dempsey and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Jennifer Lopez and Treat Williams on the set of Second Act in New York. Photo by: KGC-146/STAR MAX/IPx 2017
In the 1990s, the actor moved into various roles, playing the villain in the pulp comic adaptation The Phantom and agent Michael Ovitz in the HBO film based on the book The Late Shift about The Tonight Show. . Succession dispute between Jay Leno and David Letterman.
Williams then enjoyed new television successes with starring roles on the CW series Everwood and a newer season of Chicago Fire. Last year, he had a supporting role in the HBO miniseries We Own This City, producer David Simon’s chronicle of corruption and insider politics at the Baltimore Police Department.