Clarence Williams III, who starred as the brooding undercover cop Lincoln Hayes on the countercultural 1968-73 ABC drama The Mod Squad, has died. He was 81. Williams died in Los Angeles on Friday J…
Williams owned a debt of gratitude to Bill Cosby, who had seenand recommended the actor to producer Aaron Spelling, who was casting. Spelling then gave Williams a small part as a reluctant getaway driver on an anthology series that he and Danny Thomas were producing.“They went in, they rob the store, you heard a pistol shot and they ran in the car,” the producer recalled in a 1999 interview for the Archive of American Television.
“We all rushed over. I said, ‘Clarence, Clarence, what happened?’ He said, ‘I’ve never driven before.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’ He said, ‘Because I wanted the job.’ I hired him that night for