William Broderick Crawford (December 9, 1911 - April 26, 1986) was an American Academy Award-winning actor.
Crawford was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick, who were both vaudeville performers; his mother had a minor career in Hollywood comedies.
Crawford was stereotyped early in his career as a rough-talking tough guy, frequently playing the villain. He gained fame in 1937, when he starred as Lenny in Of Mice and Men on Broadway. He moved to Hollywood afterward, but did not get the role in the film version. (The role instead went to Lon Chaney, Jr., who was himself thereafter typecast as a hulking brute.)
In 1949, Crawford was cast as Willie Stark, a character based on Louisiana politician Huey Long in All the King's Men, for which Crawford won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The following year he starred in another smash hit film, Born Yesterday.
Despite these successes, Crawford's career suffered because of his typecasting and also his own sometimes belligerent personality. In 1955, prominent television producer Frederick Ziv decided the Academy Award winner was worth taking a chance on and offered Crawford the lead role as "Chief" Dan Mathews in the police drama Highway Patrol. This program became highly popular during its four-year (1955-1959) period of first-run syndication and remained a fixture on local stations for many years afterward. The role revived Crawford's career, and he concentrated on television for most of the remainder of his life. Until the mid-1960s, many of his television roles were for Ziv, who was willing to accept the occasional challenges in working with Crawford. Years later, Ziv matter-of-factly told an interviewer, "To be honest, Broderick could be a handful!"
Crawford was also typecast in his television roles. He usually played a gruff but compassionate and fearless good guy. He appeared in very few American-based motion pictures after 1955, though he continued to accept occasional roles in European made films. Playing on the stereotypical tough cop of his famous TV role, he wore the trademark fedora and black suit when he made a memorable appearance as guest host of a 1977 episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live.
Crawford died in 1986 at the age of 74 in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a stroke. He is one of a handful of performers who have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame -- a star for motion pictures at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard and another star for television at 6734 Hollywood Boulevard.
