Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville

Anson Williams: Music, Directing, and Entrepreneurship: How He Built a Multi-Faceted Career

• Tony Mantor

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Tony Mantor sits down with Anson Williams, the unforgettable star from Happy Days, for a fascinating journey through his multifaceted career in entertainment and the stories that shaped his path to success.

• Started as a passionate singer with no formal acting training before landing his role on Happy Days
• Entrepreneurially introduced music into Happy Days, leading to record deals and $17,000 per night concert gigs
• Encountered John Lennon and his son Julian who crashed the Happy Days set, creating lasting memories
• Formed deep bonds with castmates through their charity softball team, playing at major stadiums worldwide
• Directed impactful projects including "No Greater Gift" which doubled organ donor cards in the US
• Created "Lone Star Kid" which was later screened for Poland's Constitutional Committee as an example of democracy
• Currently directing "Crazy Mama," a one-woman play starring Linda Pearl from Happy Days
• Developing "America's Funniest Joke," an innovative digital platform to revolutionize reality competition shows
• Reflects on Happy Days' enduring 50-year legacy as ABC's most successful show ever


Speaker 1:

My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolve into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce our special guest, anson Williams. You know him as one of the unforgettable stars on the iconic show Happy Days. His journey is nothing short of fascinating. From the small screen to the stories behind the scenes, he has a wealth of experience to share. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

When you were cast in Happy Days, you did a lot of singing on that show. Yeah, which was your passion acting or singing?

Speaker 2:

It was singing. I just had this desire to sing. So I grew up lower, lower middle class. I had to do any job I could to get you know voice lessons, so I had voice lessons From there, got in this Broadway a la carte group where we do all Broadway songs for old ladies, homes and things like that Very glamorous, and then I would do talent nights around LA. You know, you know the Wednesday nights, Tuesday nights, so no one shows up.

Speaker 1:

Yes, been there, done that.

Speaker 2:

They have the talent nights so they hopefully will'll bring a couple people to drink. It's a good place to be bad. You know, you have the piano player, the cigarette line. Give me our sheet music, yeah, so, and then from there I went into stage. Musical. You know theater and never really had an acting lesson in my life ever. Ever. A lot of theater, you know like that, but not like drama class.

Speaker 1:

How did music become part of the show?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's interesting how music became part of the show. I've always been pretty entrepreneurial in many areas. I've always been one and I think more people should follow this. See what you have now, what you don't have. Everyone sees no opportunity. I always see opportunity. When there's no one else sees it, I go nope, opportunity here, you find it. You know, you don't, you don't complain, you find it.

Speaker 2:

So when we started happy days, uh, we weren't paid like actors today, nowhere near. It started off nine hundred dollars an episode for half a season and twelve hundred dollars an episode for the second season. Eighteen hundred dollars an episode for the third season. I mean1,800 an episode for the third season. I mean it was fine, but you're not going to retire on that. But I thought, you know, music would be great on the show If I could sing on the show. I think it would be good for the show. I'll have a band, but also I think I could get booked. It was a total entrepreneurial venture, no ego attached, just livelihood.

Speaker 2:

So one morning I found Gary Marshall, our wonderful mentor. Second father created lives for us. I said I have something exciting to talk about. He said well, talk to me later, I don't have time. Anyone who knows how Gary talks. You know, I'll talk to you later. I don't have time. It'll only take a minute. Okay, you got a minute. You got a minute. Walk with me, walk with me. So I'm walking and I did an elevator pitch. You got girls on the show. You got cars on the show. You need a band in Arnold's. We opened the show band in Arnold's and I sing.

Speaker 2:

He goes. Wait, you sing. Yeah, are you good? Yeah, not bad. I think. Okay, he goes. Really, you know, he says that's an interesting idea. Before I became a comedian, an actor and then a writer, I was a drummer. He goes yeah, richie could be on the sax. He goes. I like it. I like it. Yeah, there's a show coming up at a fraternity. I think we could fit a song. I'm thinking I'm on national television singing I just broke through the clouds here. Then he yells at me but you're singing to a bulldog. I go, excuse me, he goes. No, I believe you're good. I believe you're good, but I don't have time to listen. But even if you're good, if you're bad, I'm going to get laughs. You're singing to a bulldog.

Speaker 1:

That's a great story. What song did you pick to sing?

Speaker 2:

So what am I going to pick? Of course I'm going to pick, all Shook Up, where Elvis sang on Sullivan. So there I am. Well, I bless my soul. What's wrong with me? I'm eating like a a bug. I'm in love.

Speaker 2:

Then cut to, the dog Jumps off the seat. You know it was a chance. So I do it and it gets lots of letters, lots of attention. Gary says, hey, people like it, let's do more. He goes Anson, you're in charge. You pick your songs. About every third episode we'll have a song in there. So I did, I had a responsibility. So I get a call from David Cassidy's label, chelsea Records, west Farrell, we'd like to sign. You Got a record deal. Then I get all the amusement parks in the country. Now they want you to do concerts Disneyland, six Flags, knott's, berry, farm, state Fairs, all that stuff. So I was making $1,200 an episode and $17,000 a night singing. Gary comes up to me. He says I'm proud of you, you don't bitch, you found opportunity and you made this show better. You go, that's good and that was it. That's how music got on the show and it just shows. You find out. Look what you have, not what you don't have. There's opportunity in front of you.

Speaker 1:

That's a great way to look at it. You had a tremendous amount of guest stars on the show. Don told me Robin Williams was his favorite. Who was your favorite?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean absolutely. You know Robin's one of them, but at the time he wasn't a star, he just was a. He broke out of happiness. As far as my like, you know someone that came on the show. That was a star Pat O'Brien. Pat O'Brien the Gipper, all that remember.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember him.

Speaker 2:

I remember a young kid, black and white, watching the film with Ronald Reagan and Pat O'Brien. He was a big movie star in the 40s and theirs was Pat O'Brien guest starring on Happy Days. He was speechless. I mean, I'm still I'm this nine-year-old kid still, you know, watching his old movies. And there he is. He knows my name. That was a thrill.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's always so good to have a star that you grew up watching. Then you wind up working with him and he actually knows who you are. Yeah, that's more than amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Did Donnie. Did he talk about the John Lennon situation?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he mentioned that John showed up with his son one day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it was early morning. It wasn't a big shooting day. Ron was there, henry was there, donnie was there, I was there, one guest star, and that was it. It was kind of a boring day. I went over to get some coffee and back then craft service is not like it is today. The bookie was the assistant electrician and the electrician's office was where he placed your bets, and Louie was also in charge of craft service. So you better don't complain to Louie, okay, don't complain to Louie. And it's like rotten apples in a bowl and the worst coffee ever in this Big Ten thing the worst. It's always great to Willie. I go to get some coffee and standing to the side was a guy with these kind of tinted glasses and a young 10-year-old kid I didn't know he was 10 at the time, but a young kid and I walked back to Don. There's this guy with a kid, looks like John Lennon and Don goes. Oh yeah, john Lennon came to hang out with us. It was John Lennon and Julian and they were on a VIP tour of Paramount and happy days, julian loved. When they heard they were passing the stage we were shooting on, they snuck off and crashed the stage, quite a few hours with us and doing original doodles for the crew Not us, we're professionals. Oh no, we don't ask, they're buying houses with theirs. The PR people heard about it ran down and took a picture with John and Julian with us. That's what we got, but it was great. We spent hours with him he was the greatest guy and Julian.

Speaker 2:

Years later I'm at Sirius Radio in New York and Sirius Radio has all their shows on one floor, one door to the next to the next, almost in a circle. So you do an interview, walk out, then do another interview, walk out. So it was in the middle of interviews and the photographer of Sirius they always take your picture when you come in was commenting. There's this nice-looking gentleman commenting on his photography. So I thought the guy must be a professional photographer.

Speaker 2:

So a little while later I'm sitting there and I hear can I have a selfie with you? And it's that nice guy, sure. And he says you know we've met. Before I go, what when he goes? I was with my father on the happy day set. I have a picture of all of us on my desk. It was one of the happiest days with my dad. It was Julian Lennon. 50 years later, all right, or 40 years, yeah, anyway, he's 54, 55 years old now, and I said only if you send it to me. So I have two pictures one with all of us when you stand and with me and Julian today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's amazing how a show like that can create so many tremendous memories. What's one of the memories that come to your mind when you look back at your times on Happy Days? When you think of it, it just brings back a smile and it almost seems like it was just yesterday.

Speaker 2:

Baseball comes to mind, because people always ask what were your favorite moments on Happy Days. Well, the favorite moments weren't really filming the show. The greatest moments were with our softball team. Gary Marshall put together a team. We were all ex-athletes and Henry was coordinated, but he never played baseball, but he learned to pitch and we started doing charity pregames at every major stadium in the United States and we'd do serious softball games against the professional football team, whoever they had against us, at Dodger Stadium, brewer Stadium, yankee Stadium, wrigley Field, all over the country, and we'd spend time in the locker room all that playing ball. And then we started doing USO tours and we played over the China Sea, we played in Germany, the Mediterranean. These amazing experiences as a team are just precious. Gary actually thought if I can put a team together, you always have your team members back, and he thought it would relate to the set, it would stop egos on the set. And it's true it did. It was a major, major reason we're all still close today because we we were teamwork and a team first, and those I mean.

Speaker 2:

One time we were in um germany what was the name of the community? Um gosh, we were playing the third infantry. All over the all over southern germany. Uh, we're playing the third infantry. All over the all over southern germany. Uh, we're playing the third infantry division in different places and we never lost the game.

Speaker 2:

And gosh, we were in one small town, like a thousand year old town. Nothing changed. I forgot the name of it. And there was a castle. The original castle on the hill was there and they even had the original suits of armor and everything in it, and they turned it into a restaurant and it overlooked the Rhine River and at the tables, instead of having water dispensers, they had wine dispensers. So we were feeling no pain. And right by us there was this store, outside to this outside patio, overlooking the Rhine River and the city, god, the city of Wurzburg, overlooking the city of Wurzburg, and there's Ron Howard and Henry and I and Don singing Splish, splash at the top of our lungs to the city of Wurzburg, over the Rhine River. You can't make those stories up. I mean, it's just phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal moments, you know. So, yeah, those are the favorite moments. Mean, it's just phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal moments, you know. So, yeah, those are the favorite moments.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's so very true. One thing Don did bring up you were more than just actors on a set. You were also family.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we were, we really were, and we're still family to this day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's just so good to have friends and family like that, even after the years. I mean, don's got his acting, he's got his music, you're still active in what you're doing, henry's still doing his thing. It's just very rare to have that kind of a relationship after so many years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, in fact, I really miss Don because he lived literally 30 minutes away and then he moved to Colorado.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he did.

Speaker 2:

My best friend moved. You know I miss him a lot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I totally get that. Good thing is that you're doing a lot of things together that keeps you in contact.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1:

You're still doing shows together. So even though you're not physically close, you're still very close with all the things you're doing together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

With everything that you've done. You've done acting, you've done music, you've done your softball and baseball games. You actually got behind the camera instead of being in front of it. You did some directing, with some pretty good projects. Now, looking back at everything you've done the miniseries and many shows that people might not realize that you were a part of what stands out. What's one of your favorite things that you did that you just really take pride in?

Speaker 2:

Well, there's a few favorites. When I first started, I pretty much created and sold to the network and then attached myself as director. No one will give you again. No one will give you a break, so you make your own break. The subjects were important. I always felt like as a storyteller. It'd be great to actually offer a little bit more. Actually, the first film that I created was Skyward. Ron Howard directed it, we both exec.

Speaker 2:

Produced In 1980, it starred Bette Davis. It also starred the first paraprolete, first disabled actress ever on the movie of the week. We had to fight for that like crazy. We'll get into all the details. It's a long story, but we did the impossible getting Bette Davis. It was called Skyward and basically it was about a young girl in a wheelchair. Basically, she's always looking up. She's never going to look down. She's always looking up at people looking down at her, and so her whole world became past them, skyward. What if I could fly and look down for the first time? What if they finally had to look up at me, not down at me? It had this whole script skyward around that. We were able to do it. We did it, did great, Did pre-med at the Kennedy Center, All the bells and whistles of Washington, but it was very instrumental in getting past the availability for disabled on sidewalks and all that when they made everything access available. Skyward had a big deal to do with that.

Speaker 1:

That's a great accomplishment. It must have been really fulfilling while you was doing that. That's a great accomplishment. It must have been really fulfilling while you was doing that.

Speaker 2:

That felt great. Then. The first one I directed was no Greater Gift after-school special. It was inspired by a true story but I fictionalized. It Won't get into the details, but it was about organ ownership and with the airing of it and with all the other organizations that took it for their own, we doubled donor cards in the United States.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's awesome, Amazing actually.

Speaker 2:

And then the other one, lone Star Kid. I did for WonderWorks on PBS. James Earl Jones starred in it for Minimum and it's about the youngest mayor in the history of the United States 12 years old, Crabb, texas, the United States, 12 years old, crap, texas. And his mentor was James Earl Jones, who was blind, illiterate, sold junk and he took out his buried money $150, and financed his kid's campaign. I won't get all the details, but he created an unincorporated campaign. He won youngest man in the United States and that wasn't cute. He put in a temporary police department. He put in a temporary medical team. He convinced Houston that they owned his town, new Roads, which they hadn't done, and I thought what a microcosm for Washington, for the people.

Speaker 2:

So I sold it, I co-wrote the script and I directed it. Exec produced it. It went on and Ron Howard also exec produced and we thought will anyone ever get the bigger picture? Will anyone ever really understand why we did this? Years later we get a letter from PBS. We'd like you to know how proud we are. This is when Poland was becoming a democracy and the Constitutional Committee requested Lone Star Kid to view. They thought it was the best examples of democracy.

Speaker 1:

I think that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

It's screened for the Constitutional Committee of Poland. My grandmother skate bowled before World War I yeah. So then after that you become a director for hire and you start doing Star Trek. And you know Hercules, xena, la Law you know, you name it, I did it. They were great, but those served a real purpose, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's always nice to be able to do something that has a greater good, other than just working on just another show. Mm-hmm, I totally get that Mm-hmm. So what's next? You've directed, you've acted, you've had music, you've done all these things. What's coming up in the next few years that you see yourself being involved with?

Speaker 2:

Oh music, donnie's got me. Donnie's the music man. Right buddy, everyone's got to go see Don Nose. He's phenomenal, best, best American songbook singer on the planet.

Speaker 1:

I totally agree. Great singer, loved working with him.

Speaker 2:

For me. I have the honor. I'm directing a major play in the March called Crazy Mama and it's actually starring. I tell you no one knows this. It into March called Crazy Mama, and it's actually starring. I tell you no one knows this. It's starring Linda Pearl. Linda Pearl was actually on Happy Days twice. She was Richie's girlfriend and Fonzie married her at the end. But Linda's also quite a television star, aside from that, quite a stage star.

Speaker 2:

She did this one-woman show written by Joan Didion, called the Year of Magical Thinking. She took over Vanessa Redgrave for that, did the West Coast premiere, london premiere, huge, huge, huge. And we're very fortunate that she's going to star on Crazy Mama, which is a one-woman show with music. There's one blues man with an original song called Crazy Mama. That's kind of like the Greek chorus. I won't get into how it all works, but he furthers the story through his lyrics, through his music. But it's basically a one-woman show. She plays 16 parts, from kids to cops, to whatever I mean, and it's a tour de force. My wife, sharon Scott Williams, wrote it and she's going to be known as one of the best playwrights in the world. It's Pulitzer Prize-winning material. It's a big deal and I'm very honored to be able to direct that and it's kind of going back to the beginning. I started directing in theater and then I'm working on a whole new platform for entertainment, entrepreneurially and creatively.

Speaker 2:

The typical television network is going bye-bye. It's like it's going away and it will go. They're going to be gone. Even the Tonight Show. They're going to four nights a week. They don't have the ad revenue. It's all going to the internet. It's all going to YouTube and TikTok. They're putting their ad money there. I have this.

Speaker 2:

I thought I thought well, gosh, I mean, why would I even bother taking shows to the network anymore, especially reality type things? So I got the rights to America's Funniest Joke, because you need an IP. America's Funniest Joke you can tell it or show it. You can't be a comedian Real people, real jokes, or show us something funny. You want to set up a crazy thing, whatever and what it is, and it's also a contest and America votes. So if you win that week, it's $10,000. If you win America's Funniest Joke of the Year, it's $100,000. You can only enter one at a time. It's $100,000. You can only enter one at a time, one per week, and America votes. And to me I went.

Speaker 2:

Well, there's the ad platform. I'm getting a couple of very talented, charismatic influencers off the internet. One gets a billion views a month. One gets like 15 billion views in the last four months and they're going to be the host and we're going to be promoting it all through influence, all through that, and people are going to subscribe Opening days. There should be maybe 8 million people ready to go. Walmart will do one week, cbs the next week. We have all the ad platforms you have for online shows. Yeah, we'll pretty much own reality contests on the internet.

Speaker 1:

When do you see that starting? Do you know yet?

Speaker 2:

Well, we're just now finishing up negotiating with the group that's putting together the whole tech. It's a big deal, it's a huge, huge, and that's going to take about four months four to five months to complete. It's very, very detailed, so it'll be within the next eight months. It'll take off, yeah, and then from there we're going to have a lot of little ancillary contests going during the contest. Maybe for two weeks it'll be Christmas, right, so for two weeks we're going to go. We're going to say, hey, best Christmas song sung in the car, best Christmas sung song in the shower. So all your ads go over there and people have fun doing just a simple little contest. That's quick and then we can echo off. We have three or four other reality platforms that America creates the content and America votes basically the same infrastructure. It's never been done. We're in the middle of doing it. So kind of exciting, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Nice. Yeah, I'll be watching for it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll be submitting something.

Speaker 1:

You never know. So in closing, last year was the 50th anniversary of your show Happy Days. In your wildest dreams did you ever think that 50 years later, this show would be as relevant as it is today?

Speaker 2:

No, no. Which show does that? No, I was just happy to get a job, like Ron, and I thought I think it'll be a hit for a while, because it was very. You know, we hadn't done a Happy Days pilot before that. You know that there were two pilots right.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I'd heard that.

Speaker 2:

The first one aired on Love America Style, didn't sell, didn't have Fonzie, didn't have Ralph, you know, they thought it didn't sell. Then American Graffiti came out. After that Grease on Broadway, abc decided, hey, let's try it again, but let's make it more like graffiti. We had an audition for the parts again and screen tested. That's a whole other story. But we got it again. So they bought it and Ron and I thought, well, you know, it's kind of hip, kind of current, I think it'll go two years. You know, had no idea it would go 10 and a half years, it had no idea it would be so iconic. And here's the amazing thing A major research company, collider, I think one of the major guys.

Speaker 2:

They went into what is the most successful show ever aired on abc since the creation of the network and had to do more than just with ratings and all that had to do with all sorts of emotional response, the whole gamut, and they went in deep to find, okay, what is the most popular show in the history since the beginning of the ABC network? And they said and here's the top 10. And I go, oh, I wonder. So I'm looking, 10, eight, nine, and I'm going, oh, god, man, we didn't even get on. We didn't even get on the top 10. Two one Happy Days, number one the most popular, the best show ever aired in the history of the abc network. Wow, you can look that up yeah, I saw that list.

Speaker 2:

I thought that was just fantastic it's like wow, no, I never, never did. But I'll tell you everyone out there, there was a magical time. I'm just a small part of it, I play my character. But the one thing Gary did he allowed us to contribute A lot of success of that show was collaborative ideas. Collaborative ideas that he took that he worked, I did music, donnie came up with all this stuff, henry came in. I mean, we were all involved in making it better in a collaborative way. They had a lot to do with it and there was just an it factor, just a moment in time, of perfect, perfect chemistry, perfect writing, perfect everything and something and something more.

Speaker 2:

There were countries that didn't even know English that related to the show. I mean not in no English, they didn't know the culture, they didn't know the culture, they didn't even know the culture, but they related to the characters somehow, some way. And I also think you know everyone wants friends that are givers before takers. And if you look at the show, even Fonzie's Cruz's, he's there for you. Parents that are givers, not takers. Everyone wants that kind of family there for you. You know where you're there for each other and it's very subtle, but it was there consistently.

Speaker 2:

It was very comfortable, it was very healing. It like calmed you down and it made you feel a bit more human after the end of that half hour. All that combined had some kind of magic. I'm not the last to define it. That's why it's lasted. As far as the show itself, it was always old. It was old when it started it was the 50s, but there's something evergreen. There's something evergreen with those relationships and the need for family and friendship. I think it's going to be around. As long as there's a screen to put it on, it's going to be around.

Speaker 1:

I think you are 100% correct there. It was a great show with great family values. Well, this has been great. I've really enjoyed this. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm glad to Thank you so much for the time.

Speaker 1:

It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media at plateau music dot com.