W.T. Dawson; Developer, Former Actor

William T. Dawson, a child actor and later a major real estate developer who built affordable housing to revitalize Compton, has died. He was 69.

Dawson died Monday in Los Angeles of cancer, his wife, Sam, said Thursday.

As Billy Dawson, the adolescent actor made his debut in the 1940 film “A Dispatch From Reuters” with Eddie Arnold. He followed that with roles in “Knute Rockne--All American” the same year, “Remember the Day” with Claudette Colbert in 1941 and “The Major and the Minor” with Ginger Rogers in 1942. Among his other films was “Lady in the Dark” in 1944, the year he ended his acting career.

After serving in World War II, Dawson went into banking. By 1963, he was president and chief executive officer of the independent National Bank of Commerce, which he sold two years later.

Dawson served as president of the Hollywood advertising agency Holzer, Taylor, McTighe & Dawson and from 1967 to 1969 was chairman, president and chief executive of Golden West Airlines.

In 1969, he founded Dawson Development Co., headquartered in Seal Beach, and launched the $100-million waterfront Marina Pacifica--a development of condominiums, a shopping center and boat slips at the Long Beach Marina.

After developing the Seal Beach Trailer Park, he formed AFCOM, a word he coined from “affordable communities,” in 1977. With that company, he developed Sunnycove, a section of affordable single-family homes in the core of economically stressed Compton.

Dawson also dreamed of building a special school adjacent to that community in order to revitalize the middle class among Compton’s predominantly Latino and black population. He donated land, invested more than $100,000 on literature and fund-raising, and--most important--persuaded Chicago educator Marva Collins to create the school. She had established a national reputation by turning children from inner-city Chicago into scholars, and Dawson hoped that she could do the same in Compton.

He abandoned the school effort in 1988 after being unable to get funding from the city or other sources.

“I feel terribly disappointed,” Dawson told The Times then. “I put four years’--forget the money--emotional effort into trying to make it happen, and it didn’t happen. It’s like losing a race.”

With AFCOM, Dawson also built a mobile home park in Palm Springs for the relocation of 550 families evicted from five trailer parks there, additional housing tracts in Compton and modestly priced apartment and condominium projects in south Orange County.

In addition to his wife, Dawson is survived by a daughter, Kathy Susa; a sister, Jeannie Foote, and two grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Church of Religious Science, 500 Marina Drive, Seal Beach.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the John Wayne Cancer Institute, 2200 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404.