Warren William

Warren William Krech was an American stage and screen actor, who achieved Hollywood stardom during the early 1930s. Later earning the nickname the "King of Pre-Code", he typified the cunning, often-amoral leading men of early sound cinema. According to one critic, "no other actor embodied the classy mix of charm and sleaze that epitomized pre-Code Hollywood." He was also the first actor to portray fictional lawyer Perry Mason.

Early life

William was born in Aitkin, Minnesota in 1894, to parents of German ancestry. His family originated in Bad Tennstedt, Thuringia, Germany. His grandfather, Ernst Wilhelm Krech, fled Germany in 1848 during the Revolution, going first to France and later emigrating to the United States. He wed Mathilde Grow in 1851, and had six children. Freeman E. Krech, Warren's father, was born in 1856. Around the age of 25, Freeman moved to Aitkin, a small town in Minnesota, where he bought a newspaper, The Aitkin Age, in 1885. He married Frances Potter, daughter of a merchant, September 18, 1890. Their son Warren was born December 2, 1894.
William's interest in acting began in 1903, when an opera house was built in Aitkin. He was an avid and lifelong amateur inventor and was personally involved in working his farm, pursuits that may have contributed to his death by exposing him to a variety of dangerous contaminants, ranging from sawdust to DDT. After high school, William auditioned for, and was enrolled in, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in October 1915.
As his senior year at AADA was coming to an end, the United States had entered the First World War, and William enlisted in the United States Army. He was assigned from base to base, in charge of training new men at various locations, and in 1918 was assigned to Fort Dix, New Jersey, near New York City. During this period, he met his future wife, Helen Barbara Nelson, who was 17 years older than he was. In October 1918, William's unit was deployed to the war front in France, and the war ended one month later. William's military service ended 1919, after which he began working on his acting career. In 1923, he and Helen were married.

Career

William, who appeared in his first Broadway play in 1920, soon made a name for himself in New York, appearing in more than 20 plays on Broadway between 1920 and 1931. During this period he also appeared in two silent films, The Town That Forgot God and Plunder.
He moved from New York City to Hollywood in 1931. Looking back at his career in 2011, The Village Voice christened him "The King of Pre-Code". He began as a contract player at Warner Bros. and quickly became a star during what is now known as the 'Pre-Code' period. He developed a reputation for portraying ruthless, amoral businessmen, crafty lawyers, and outright charlatans. These roles were considered controversial, yet they were highly satisfying. This was the harshest period of the Great Depression, characterized by massive business failures and oppressive unemployment. Movie audiences jeered at the businessmen, who were often portrayed as predators.
William did play some sympathetic roles, including Dave the Dude in Frank Capra's Lady for a Day and a loving father and husband cuckolded by Ann Dvorak's character in Three on a Match. He was a young songwriter's comically pompous older brother in Gold Diggers of 1933. William was Julius Caesar in Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra, and with Colbert again the same year as her character's love interest in Imitation of Life. He played the swashbuckling musketeer d'Artagnan in The Man in the Iron Mask, directed by James Whale.
File:TCOT-Lucky-Legs-1935.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|William as Perry Mason in The Case of the Lucky Legs, with Genevieve Tobin and Patricia Ellis
The studios capitalized on William's popularity by placing him in multiple "series" films, particularly as detectives and crime solvers. William was the first to portray Erle Stanley Gardner's fictional defense attorney Perry Mason on the big screen, starring in four Perry Mason mysteries. He played Raffles-like reformed jewel thief The Lone Wolf in nine films, beginning with The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, and appeared as Detective Philo Vance in two of the series films, The Dragon Murder Case and the comedic The Gracie Allen Murder Case. He also starred as Sam Spade in Satan Met a Lady, the second screen version of 'The Maltese Falcon'.
Other roles included Mae West's manager in Go West, Young Man ; a jealous district attorney in another James Whale film, Wives Under Suspicion ; copper magnate Jesse Lewisohn in 1940's Lillian Russell; the evil Jefferson Carteret in Arizona ; and the sympathetic Dr. Lloyd in The Wolf Man. In 1945, he played Brett Curtis in cult director Edgar G. Ulmer's 1945 modern-day version of Hamlet, called Strange Illusion. In what would be his last film, he played Laroche-Mathieu in The Private Affairs of Bel Ami in 1947.
On radio, William starred in the transcribed series Strange Wills, which featured "stories behind strange wills that run the gamut of human emotion."

Personal life

Although on-screen William was an actor audiences loved to hate, off-screen he was a private man, and he and his wife Helen kept out of the limelight. She and Warren remained a couple throughout his entire adult life. He was often described as having been shy in real life. Co-star Joan Blondell once said, "... was an old man – even when he was a young man."

Death

William died on September 24, 1948, from multiple myeloma, at age 53. His wife died a few months later. He was recognized for his contribution to motion pictures with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in February 1960.

Filmography

Partial stage credits

Note: The list below is limited to New York/Broadway theatrical productions; listed as Warren William, except where noted

Run	Title	Role	Notes
Mar 29, 1920 - May 1920	Mrs. Jimmie Thompson	Edgar Blodgett	as 'Warren W. Krech'
Jan 24, 1921 - Jan 1921	John Hawthorne	John Hawthorne	as 'Warren W. Krech'
Nov 09, 1921 - Nov 1921	We Girls	Doctor Tom Brown	as 'Warren W. Krech'
Feb 12, 1924 - Apr 1924	The Wonderful Visit	Sir John Gotch, K.B.E.
Apr 16, 1924 - Jun 1924	Expressing Willie	George Cadwalader
Feb 16, 1925 - Feb 1925	Nocturne	Keith Reddington
Mar 24, 1925 - Apr 1925	The Blue Peter	David Hunter
May 5, 1925 - May 1925	Rosmersholm	Johannes Rosmer
Nov 16, 1925 - Apr 1926	Twelve Miles Out	Gerald Fey
Mar 18, 1926 - Apr 1926	Easter One More Day	Elis
Sep 21, 1926 - Nov 1926	Fanny	Joe White
Dec 26, 1927 - Jan 1928	Paradise	Dr. Achilles Swain
Mar 13, 1928 - Mar 1928	Veils	Mr. Robert Sloan
Apr 24, 1928 - Apr 1928	The Golden Age	The Stranger
Dec 11, 1928 - Jan 1929	Sign of the Leopard	Captain Leslie
Feb 19, 1929 - Dec 1929	Let Us Be Gay	Bob Brown	Replaced by Barry O'Neill for unknown number of performances
Oct 22, 1929 - Oct 1929	Week-End	Brett Laney
Feb 08, 1930 - Feb 1930	Out of a Blue Sky	Paul Rana
May 12, 1930 - May 1930	The Vikings	Sigurd
Oct 06, 1930 - Oct 1930	Stepdaughters of War	Geoffrey Hilder
Nov 19, 1930 - Jun 1931	The Vinegar Tree	Max Lawrence