FUNNY MAN

‘The Naked Gun’ and ‘Father of the Bride’ Star Dies at 98

The actor’s death was announced in the same week the world heard about the passing of his “Father of the Bride” co-star Diane Keaton.

Actor Ed Williams, who played lab scientist Ted Olson in the Police Squad! TV series and The Naked Gun films, has died at the age of 98. The actor’s granddaughter confirmed Williams died on Oct. 2 in Los Angeles to The Hollywood Reporter. The actor was born and raised in San Jose, California. As a child, Williams was fascinated with The Lone Ranger on the radio and starred in the play What a Life! He moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Nancy, to teach speech classes at L.A. City College for 28 years. While he was teaching, he decided to audition for an acting job for the first time in 24 years, landing the role of Olson on Police Squad! “I made up for lost time and got a fairly decent part to start coming back into acting,” Williams noted in a 2017 interview. He later appeared in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) and its two sequels, as well as Father of the Bride with Diane Keaton where he played a priest. Keaton died this week of pneumonia at the age of 79.