Early Life and Career
Samm-Art Williams was born in 1946 in Burgaw, North Carolina, the son of Samuel and Valdosia Williams. His mother was a school teacher, and Williams attended segregated public schools through high school.
As Samm Williams, he entered New York City theater as an actor in 1973, performing in the play Black Jesus. With New York's Negro Ensemble Company (NEC), Williams appeared in such plays as Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide (St. Mark's Playhouse, 1974) and Liberty Calland (St. Mark's Playhouse, 1975), before taking on the name Samm-Art Williams for Argus and Klansman and Waiting for Mongo (St. Mark's Playhouse, 1975).
Williams, a 6' 8" lefty, was once a sparring partner of Muhammad Ali. Samm was recruited to work with Ali, who was afraid of lefties. Five inches taller than Ali, Samm probably has a longer reach.
Other early New York acting experience includes understudy work in Leslie Lee's Tony Award-nominated Broadway play The First Breeze of Summer (Palace Theatre, June 7 - July 19, 1975); Eden (St. Mark's Playhouse, 1976), The Brownsville Raid (Theatre de Lys, 1976-77), Night Shift (Playhouse Theatre, 1977), and Black Body Blues (St. Mark's Playhouse, 1978). His early work in regional theater includes Nevis Mountain Dew at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C (1979).
He made his screen debut playing "Roger" in the Richard Price novel adaptation The Wanderers (1979), and played a subway police officer in director Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980). An earlier film, the independent blaxploitation feature The Baron, a.k.a. Baron Wolfgang von Tripps and Black Cue, made circa 1977, was released direct-to-video by Paragon Video in 1996.
As Samm Williams, he wrote the play Welcome to Black River, produced by the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) at St. Mark's Playhouse in 1975; and as Samm-Art Williams, The Coming and Do Unto Others, both at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn in 1976; A Love Play produced by the NEC that same year; The Last Caravan (1977); and Brass Birds Don't Sing, at New York City's Stage 73 in 1978.
Williams participated in the NEC Playwrights Workshop, under the guidance of playwright-in-residence Steve Carter, who strongly influenced his work. About Carter, Williams has said "that no single individual has influenced my writing to the degree that Steve Carter has."
Read more about this topic: Samm-Art Williams, Biography
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