{"id":7524,"date":"2026-07-16T09:58:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7524"},"modified":"2026-07-16T09:58:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:58:58","slug":"227-star-and-sanford-and-son-regular-was-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7524","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;227&#8217; Star and &#8216;Sanford and Son&#8217; Regular Was 91"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-paywall\">\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHal Williams, the TV veteran who appeared in American sitcom staples like \u201c227\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/sanford-and-son\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sanford-and-son\" data-tag=\"sanford-and-son\">Sanford and Son<\/a>,\u201d had died, according to his manager. He was 91.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201c227\u201d ran from 1985 to 1990, and followed a group of middle-aged tenants living together in an apartment building. Williams starred as Lester Jenkins, who, in the show, was husband to Marla Gibbs\u2019 Mary Jenkins and father to Regina King\u2019s Brenda Jenkins. \u201c227\u201d aired 116 episodes across five seasons on NBC. Series star Jack\u00e9e Harry won an Emmy for best supporting actress for her work on the show in 1987. Other cast members included Helen Martin, Alaina Reed-Hall and Curtis Baldwin.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWilliams appeared in 22 episodes of \u201cSanford and Son\u201d as Officer \u201cSmitty\u201d Smith. The character was part of a duo with Howard Platt\u2019s Officer \u201cHoppy\u201d Hopkins. The pair had a recurring bit where Hopkins would lead by outlining a case with complicated police jargon, and it would be up to Smith to spell it all out again in layman\u2019s terms. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-Bx3n1cx-2c\">recent interview<\/a> with WKYC, Williams explained how the Smitty and Hoppy gag came to be: \u201cWe did it in one time in rehearsal and the producers thought it was funny. We did it in the first or second episode and it clicked. Some days, we would come to rehearsal and they didn\u2019t have anything solid. [The producers would then say,] \u2018Go out, take a break for two hours, and bring us something back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWilliams\u2019 other TV credits include \u201cOn the Rocks,\u201d \u201cThe Waltons,\u201d \u201cPrivate Benjamin\u201d and \u201cThe Sinbad Show.\u201d His most recent TV role was on CBS\u2019 \u201cMatlock\u201d remake. On the film side, Williams appeared in \u201cHardcore,\u201d \u201cThe Rookie,\u201d \u201cPercy &amp; Thunder,\u201d \u201cGuess Who\u201d and \u201cFlight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hal Williams, the TV veteran who appeared in American sitcom staples like \u201c227\u201d and \u201cSanford and Son,\u201d had died, according to his manager. He was 91. \u201c227\u201d ran from 1985 to 1990, and followed a group of middle-aged tenants living together in an apartment building. Williams starred as Lester Jenkins, who, in the show, was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MixCollage-15-Jul-2026-09-08-PM-6549.jpg?crop=0px%2C2px%2C1200px%2C675px&resize=1000%2C563","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}