Michael Williams

Journalist, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Emigrating to the USA as a penniless youth, he was a newspaper reporter in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, before his conversion to active Catholicism (1912), which he recounted in a colourful memoir, The Book of High Romance (1918). Seeking to create a Catholic intellectual periodical under lay auspices, he co-founded Commonweal magazine (1914) and was its editor until 1937.

For other persons named Michael Williams, see Michael Williams (disambiguation).

Michael Leonard Williams (9 July 1935 – 11 January 2001) was a British actor.

Although best known as the husband of Dame Judi Dench, Williams had a distinguished career of his own, as both a classical and a comedy actor. (In the latter, in perhaps an irresistible casting decision, he played Shakespeare's character Michael Williams!)

His many radio roles included crime reporter George Cragge in In the Red and its sequels, and Dr Watson in the BBC's complete run of Sherlock Holmes adaptations.

Williams provided voices for the Woodland Animations BBC Television series Charlie Chalk, created by Ivor Wood.

He married Dench in 1971, and they had one daughter, Tara Cressida Williams (known as "Finty Williams"), who is also an actor.

Although Williams was a Roman Catholic and Dench is a Quaker, theirs was one of the most successful showbiz marriages, and they worked together on several series of the situation comedy, A Fine Romance, from 1981 onwards.

Shortly before his death from lung cancer at the age of 65, Williams was awarded a Knighthood of St. Gregory by Pope John Paul II.