He had a long and varied career, but I remember him best for his role as "Commodore Matt Decker" in the Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine".
"There was, but not anymore!:
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When I was a kid, William Windom had a show called My World and Welcome to It, in which he played a character modeled on New Yorker magazine cartoonist and writer James Thurber.
I also remember him from a couple of appearances on Barney Miller. In the first season, he played a man who came into the squadroom wearing a belt of dynamite, threatening to blow up the room if he didn't hear from the mayor. In the final season, he was a different character; Barney got thrown in jail on contempt of court charges, and Windom played his unidentified cellmate (we never even saw his face). That was one of the few episodes past the first season that didn't take place entirely within the squadroom.
...Liking Thurber very much , I remember MWAWTI too ( Years later , I saw the later feature the same folks who had bought the rights to Thurber's material and " persona " made , THE WAR BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN , with Henry Fonda as the pseudo-JT !)...
The first time I saw William Windom was when he starred, with Inger Stevens, in the television series The Farmer's Daughter (ABC, 1963-6). It was a rare turn for him as a presentable leading man.
After that, he seemed relegated to parts playing characters who were slightly quirky or vaguely unpleasant. The tormented, nerve-frayed Commodore Decker, from Star Trek, of course. Or starchy officials, such as Assistant D.A. Burt Gordon, from the first Columbo pilot, Prescription: Murder (Universal TV, 1968).
Age and weight-gain eventually put Windom into the rôle of character actor, where he tended to ramp up the eccentricity. By then, it was difficult for most---except for old-timers like me---to believe that he ever was a handsome, solid-minded lead, as he was in The Farmer's Daughter.
The great thing about William Windom's preformance in Star Trek is when we see his log entry before his crew is killed and he's calm, component and captainly. He is Kirk's equal and would have succeeded as Kirk did if their positions were reversed.
A wonderful character actor, and always in demand.
My first and best memory of Mr. Windom was his role as the prosecutor in "To Kill a Mockingbird." He sucked on his pencil and threw his leg over the arm of his chair. When Tom Robinson stated he felt sorry for Mayella, he pounced on the statement like a hungry dog on a bone.
I think that's a good point. It's strengthened by the scene where Kirk practically begs the guy to stop what he's doing and turn back, rather than commit suicide in a hopeless move just to somehow atone for the death of his entire crew. It's clear that the guy has snapped, that he just isn't thinking straight, when he tries to repeat, with the Enterprise, what he'd already done with the Constellation.
It's perhaps why Spock was so concerned when it looked like Kirk was going to repeat what Dekker did! I always liked that scene, when he says, "Jim-- you'll be killed." Not "Kirk"-- "Jim". I love when that kind of thing slips out from him. Because Kirk & Dekker were so much alike, Spock considers the SAME thing might happen with his best friend!
It amazes me when I think that I can still remember, quite clearly, seeing that episode when it was FIRST-RUN. I've lost count of how many times I've seen it since. Must be at least 2 dozen times, which is just unheard of for any other "adventure" tv series. Of course, I've seen in quite a few times edited (GRRRRRR) but any time I watch one of these UNCUT (as I did sometime last year), it somehow brings back my original memories all over again. Even though I've seen it so many times, some of these episodes still feel "fresh", especially if you see them uncut.
Sol Kaplan's score for the episode is one I rank amng the very BEST in the entire 3 years of the series. It was such a thrill to finally get ahold of it on CD (a few years after it was initially released-- but then withdrawn a week later for some reason). One day at work, I was discussing soundtrack music with a co-worker, and we got to talking about LOST IN SPACE and STAR TREK. The general consensus seems to be that possibly the single most memorable (and exciting) piece of LIS music is the section of "The Landing" (by John Williams) when the Jupiter 2 is about to crash on that planet in the 3rd episode. The track was later reused a number of times, often during climactic fight scenes (even sword fights). What cracked me up was, when we got to talking about STAR TREK, both of us, at the same time, started humming a bit of "Kirk Does It Again" (by Sol Kaplan), which is heard when Kirk is in the process of driving The Costellation straight down the maw of The Doomsday Machine, while Scotty is desperately trying to get that damned transporter working again!!!
I also remember the coming attractions for that episode. STAR TREK had an interesting way of assembling often very-misleading previews, so they'd show you something very exciting, but give you a false impression of what was really going on, so as NOT to blow any surprises. In this case, the way it was edited, it looked like Kirk was saying, "Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard!" with the idea being that he wanted to be beamed abord the doomsday machine! Most later TV series could learn a thing or two from this... I've seen countless coming attractions which basically BLOW the entire episode they're promoting, so there's NO surprise whatsoever. (Then again, I've seen coming attractions for movies that essentially tell you the ENTIRE story of the film... so there's NO reason to pay to go see it.)
I also think a bit part of the shocking, oppressive feel of that entire episode is the fact that, up to then, while spaceships had occasionally gotten destroyed, you'd never really seen severe damage up close. The impression one got, after awhile, was that the future of STAR TREK was one where a starship like The Enterprise was almost indestructible. Seeing The Constellation in that shape, just before the opening credits, was a shock. Suddenly, The Enterprise didn't seem so safe anymore.
That is the show I remember him from. My mom was a huge Murder, She Wrote fan, so I watched it a lot by default. Plus, it just naturally occurred after 60 Minutes and football during the football season.
Alexandra Kitty said:
...Henry , in " coming attractions " for the Windom ST episode , do you mean:
(1) The running-in-general on the network's stations in the week before the showing of the episode ca ?????????
(2) The one that may have run at the end of the week before's episode , as in " Next Week..." ?
(3) The TOP of the show ca that action shows of that era especially had running scenes from the forthcoming-NOW episode , which ran after an immediate first shot of a little station identification-type quick thing going " Star Trek . In Color !!!!! " ?
Henry R. Kujawa said:
Philip Portelli said:
That is one of the subtly brilliant aspects of Mr. Windom's performance as Commodore Decker. It makes his mental deterioration even more disturbing to the audience, because the viewers had seen--or at least, heard---for themselves how competent and capable Decker had been.
Speaking of Windom's performance as COMO Decker, remember how, while sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge, Decker constantly rubbed two computer discs together?
In at least one interview, Mr. Windom stated that, getting into the character of COMO Decker, he came up with that bit of business with the computer discs---to echo the way Captain Queeg, from the film The Caine Mutiny, would roll two small brass balls together in his hand in times of stress.
Just as Queeg's act with the balls was a visual cue of his mental unhinging, so it was with Decker and his computer discs.
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