John McLiam

John McLiam (born John Williams on January 24, 1918 in Alberta, Canada) was a Canadian actor celebrated for his remarkable ability to adopt a wide range of accents, a talent that gave his characters an unforgettable texture. After attending St. Mary's College of California, he served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy during World War II and earned a Bronze Star before briefly working as a journalist for the San Francisco Examiner. He adopted the Gaelic form of his surname, McLiam, as his stage name and launched his acting career in Maxwell Anderson's Winterset in San Francisco in 1946, later moving to New York where he appeared in Broadway productions such as Barefoot in Athens, Saint Joan, and Tiger at the Gates. In 1960 he relocated to California, transitioning to film and television, where his credits grew to include memorable roles like the cockney Harry in My Fair Lady (1964), Boss Kean in Cool Hand Luke (1967), and the murder victim Herbert Clutter in In Cold Blood (1967). He later portrayed Orval Kellerman in First Blood (1982) and appeared as John Gaunt in the filmed version of Shakespeare’s Richard II (1982), delivering the famous speech with operatic intensity. McLiam was equally prolific on television, guest‑starring in series such as The Andy Griffith Show, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, MASH*, The A‑Team and Dynasty, and took on historical figures like Ulysses S. Grant in the miniseries Freedom Road. Beyond acting, he authored the Broadway play The Sin of Pat Muldoon, which ran briefly in 1957. He married Roberta, with whom he had a daughter named Claire, and he died on April 16, 1994 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, after battling melanoma and Parkinson’s disease, leaving behind a legacy of versatile performances across stage, screen, and television.