Biografie

25. Juli 1925 · San Francisco, Kalifornien, USA

31. März 1986 · Los Angeles, Kalifornien, USA (Gehirntumor)

William Gerald Paris

1,87 m

Frequently appeared in small (one scene) roles

Directed 84 of the 158 episodes of Dick van Dyke Show (1961) after being hired as an actor to play next-door neighbor Jerry Helper, a dentist. He found he had a real talent for directing and went on to direct Happy Days (1974) and the pilot for Laverne & Shirley (1976).

There is some intrigue in his directing Henry Winkler as "The Fonz" in Happy Days (1974), Winkler's character deriving his style from Jerry and other Black Rebels Motorcycle Club members in Der Wilde (1953).

Father of Julie Paris, Tony Paris, and Andrew Paris (best known for his role as Bud Kirkland in the "Police Academy" movies).

[on the difficulties of being a tall actor] You ever see a picture called The Flying Missile (1950)? I was in it, and Glenn Ford starred. We were on a submarine and I was looking out of the periscope all the time. Only it would look bad if we had to lower the periscope for Ford after I finished looking out of it. So I spent the whole picture crouched over.

[on becoming a director] At last I can paint the whole canvas. How's that for a figure of speech, eh? When I was a character actor, I was painting only one color--blue or green, as it were. Now I can work on the whole movie.

[on unnecessary violence in films] There have been violent pictures that were masterpieces. I think of pictures like Vom Winde verweht (1939), Bonnie und Clyde (1967), "The Battle of Algiers" [aka Schlacht um Algier (1966)]) and Im Westen nichts Neues (1930). These pictures knew how to employ violence. I took my kid to see "Gone with the Wind", and the scene where the street is filled with dying soldiers, she found tremendously moving. But then she went to see Point Blank - Keiner darf Überleben (1967)--I wouldn't have let her but, somehow, she went without me realizing what kind of movie it was--and here was all this brutality, shooting, torture. What does it mean in a context like that?

My trouble as an actor was twofold: I was too tall and I wasn't handsome enough. Richard Widmark wanted me in a couple of movies, and they told him I was too tall; I'd make him look short. Widmark said what the hell, we can dig a hole. And I remember I was Robert Taylor's roommate in Zwischen Himmel und Hölle (1956) and I had to sit down all the time. Yeah. I remember the scene where I was leaving and I was supposed to bid him goodbye. The director told me to sit on the bed. What's this? I said. I'm leaving, and I'm sitting on the bed? The director says, "Give him a can of beer or something. He can be drinking a can of beer, and then we cut to him outside the door".