(CNN) –– Treat Williams, the veteran actor who starred in the television 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.
Born Richard Treat Williams in Rowayton, Connecticut, he studied theater in college and moved to New York shortly after graduation. There, he landed the role of John Travola’s understudy in “Grease” and later replaced him as Danny Zuko.
Williams’ versatile career included a role in director Milos Forman’s adaptation of the musical “Hair” in 1979, followed by a lead with another A-list director, Sidney Lumet, in the gritty undercover crime drama “Prince of the City.”
Although Williams seemed destined for great stardom, his next films did not match that initial promise, though he continued to work steadily, including in a remake of the made-for-TV movie “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and other made-for-TV movies in which he starred. boxer Jack Dempsey and FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover.
In the 1990s, the actor transitioned into different types of roles, playing the villain in the pulp comic adaptation “The Phantom” and agent Michael Ovitz in the HBO movie based on the book “The Late Shift,” about the “The Tonight Show” succession battle between Jay Leno and David Letterman.
Williams subsequently found new television success starring on the CW series “Everwood” and a more recent season on “Chicago Fire.” Last year, she co-starred in the HBO miniseries “We Own This City,” producer David Simon’s chronicle of corruption and insider politics at the Baltimore Police Department.
