William Katt

William Katt is an American actor whose career includes horror films, television comedy, and a long-running courtroom mystery series. Born in Los Angeles in 1951, he is the son of actors Bill Williams and Barbara Hale. Hale played secretary Della Street on the original *Perry Mason* television series, a connection that later became part of Katt’s own career.

Katt played Tommy Ross in Brian De Palma’s 1976 film *Carrie*, adapted from Stephen King’s novel. Tommy is the student who takes Carrie White, played by Sissy Spacek, to the prom. His kindness gives Carrie a rare moment of acceptance before the prank that triggers the film’s climax. In John Milius’s *Big Wednesday* (1978), Katt played surfer Jack Barlow alongside Jan-Michael Vincent and Gary Busey. The film follows three friends through the changing surf culture and political climate of the 1960s and 1970s. Katt then played the Sundance Kid opposite Tom Berenger’s Butch Cassidy in *Butch and Sundance: The Early Days* (1979), a prequel to the 1969 film.

His best-known television role is Ralph Hinkley in *The Greatest American Hero*, which aired on ABC from 1981 to 1983. Ralph is a schoolteacher given a suit with extraordinary powers by aliens. Because he loses its instruction manual, flying and using its other abilities become unpredictable challenges. Robert Culp played FBI agent Bill Maxwell, while Connie Sellecca played attorney Pam Davidson. The show’s theme song, “Believe It or Not,” performed by Joey Scarbury, became a hit in its own right.

Katt later appeared with his mother in the *Perry Mason* television films. Raymond Burr returned as Mason, Barbara Hale returned as Della Street, and Katt played Paul Drake Jr., the son of the private investigator played by William Hopper in the original series. Katt appeared in the early films beginning with *Perry Mason Returns* in 1985. The role linked two generations of performers across two versions of the same fictional world.

In the horror-comedy *House* (1985), Katt starred as Roger Cobb, a writer and Vietnam veteran who moves into his late aunt’s house and confronts frightening events connected to his past. Decades later, he appeared as Art Jenkins in the independent science-fiction film *The Man from Earth* (2007). Its story unfolds largely through a conversation among academics after one colleague claims to have lived for thousands of years. These roles show the range of specific characters for which Katt remains recognizable: a prom date, a surfer, an accidental superhero, an investigator, and a troubled writer.