After ‘Denver,’ His List of Things to Do in Movies May Grow

Treat Williams’ over-the-top performance in Gary Fleder’s low-budget debut film, “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” is being hailed as a comeback. Cast as Critical Bill, a psychotic thug who spends his spare time beating up the corpses in the morgue where he works, Williams just about steals the film from co-stars Andy Garcia, Christopher Walken and Jack Warden. But the 44-year-old actor is quick to point out that though “Denver,” which opened Friday, is said to mark his comeback, he never really went away.

Pegged for major stardom when he appeared in prestige films such as Milos Forman’s 1979 “Hair” and Sidney Lumet’s 1981 “Prince of the City,” Williams concedes he did lose his way at that point when a fondness for cocaine threatened to derail his career. Through it all, however, he never stopped working.

In just the past five years he appeared in a New York stage production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna,” a short film directed by Wayne Powers based on the story “The Taming Power of the Small” that’s slated to circulate on next year’s festival circuit and made his directorial debut with David Mamet’s “Texan,” which aired last year on Showtime.

Passing through Los Angeles en route to Australia, where Simon Wincer’s $50-million version of the serialized movie mystery of the ‘40s “The Phantom” shoots through January, Williams shows up at a Beverly Hills hotel looking like a dapper villain, which is what he plays for Wincer (who directed “Lonesome Dove”). Dressed in an impeccably cut suit and sporting a neatly trimmed mustache, he apparently looks better than he feels, as he’s at the end of a long bout with the flu.

“What interested me about Critical Bill is that he’s incredibly violent and innocent at the same time,” says Williams, speaking softly as he nurses a cup of tea. “And, the thing that intrigued me about the film in general is that it works as both a contemporary gangster film and a black comedy in the spirit of Evelyn Waugh but is ultimately about the different ways people deal with imminent death,” adds the actor of “Denver,” which takes its title from a song by Warren Zevon and was shot on location in Colorado in 1994.

As he ably demonstrated in films like “Smooth Talk” and Showtime’s “J. Edgar Hoover,” Williams has a talent for playing low-life weirdos, but in fact, these characters are a stretch for him. Born into a wealthy Episcopalian family in Connecticut, Williams reports that his father was an executive and his mother worked as an antiques dealer.

“Like most people, I enjoyed films and television when I was growing up, but never thought of it as work I might want to do,” adds the actor, who has two sisters. “Then my high school English teacher showed us a [1962] film by Serge Bourguignon called ‘Sundays and Cybele,’ and I understood for the first time what film can do.”

Enrolling in a small college in Lancaster, Pa., planning to earn a degree in English, Williams found himself sidetracked by the drama department. “I did tons of Shakespeare and musicals in college, and also studied opera, and by my second year of college I knew I was going to be a professional actor. But I wasn’t thinking about film then--I wanted to do theater.”

Which he did. Moving to New York in 1973, he spent eight months as John Travolta’s understudy in the Broadway production of “Grease,” then went on to work with the Andrews Sisters in “Over There.” His stage work led to small parts in three films--”The Ritz,” “The Eagle Has Landed” and “Deadly Hero”--which spurred him to move to Hollywood. “I hated it here then, though, because all my friends were in New York, so in 1975 I moved back to Manhattan and played the lead in ‘Grease’ for three years.”

The movie break that didn’t come to Williams during his sojourn to L.A. came the following year, when Forman gave him a lead role in “Hair.” That same year Steven Spielberg put him in the big-budget comedy “1941,” and Williams was off and running.

“That was a heady, somewhat frightening experience, and it wasn’t long before I was spinning out of control with cocaine,” he recalls. “I sometimes wince when I think of the time I wasted, but I have no regrets, because I did what I needed to do.

“When I realized I didn’t like the way I was living, I decided that instead of going to a clinic I’d go into analysis--classical Freudian analysis, five times a week for seven years, from 1981-87. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and through that process I regained my life.

“During that period I got all my flight ratings as a commercial pilot and launched a flight company, Cineflight, which operates out of Van Nuys Airport,” adds Williams, who’s been flying since he was 17. “I also met and married my wife, which helped free me as an actor because it shifted the center of my life off my career.

“During that time I wasn’t getting much film work because you don’t go back to the big leagues so easily,” adds Williams, who made five films in Italy during the ‘80s. “My career came to me very young and I assumed it would always be easy, as do most young actors, so I burned lots of bridges during a certain period. I didn’t know then that word gets out if you’re not sharp, and that this is a competitive and unforgiving industry driven by money.

“I finally have these realities in the proper place, because my life has become very rich and full. My wife and I have a 4-year-old son, and we split our time between Manhattan and a farm we built in Vermont. Regardless of where I am, I still read about eight scripts a week, but when I’m in Vermont I spend most of my time fooling with my fruit trees or riding around on a tractor.”