Warren William

Warren William Krech was born on December 2, 1894, in Aitkin, Minnesota, to parents of German ancestry. His family traced its roots to Bad Tennstedt, Thuringia, Germany, where his grandfather Ernst Wilhelm Krech was born in 1819 before fleeing the country during the Revolution of 1848, eventually emigrating to the United States. Ernst married Mathilde Grow in 1851 and had six children, one of whom, Freeman E. Krech, born in 1856, became Warren's father. Freeman relocated to Aitkin as a young man and purchased a local newspaper, The Aitkin Age, in 1885. He married Frances Potter, the daughter of a merchant, on September 18, 1890, and the couple's son Warren was born four years later.

William's interest in acting took hold in 1903, when an opera house was constructed in Aitkin. Following high school, he auditioned for and was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, enrolling in October 1915. As he neared the end of his studies, the United States entered the First World War, and William enlisted in the United States Army. He was assigned to multiple bases, where he was responsible for training new recruits, and in 1918 was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. It was during this period that he met Helen Barbara Nelson, who was 17 years his senior and would become his wife. In October 1918, his unit was deployed to France, though the war ended one month after their arrival. His military service concluded in 1919, after which he turned his full attention to acting. He and Helen married in 1923.

William made his Broadway debut in 1920 and went on to appear in more than 20 productions on the New York stage between 1920 and 1931. His Broadway credits included The Vinegar Tree, Stepdaughters of War, The Vikings, Out of a Blue Sky, and Week-End, among other plays. Alongside his stage work during this period, he appeared in two silent films, The Town That Forgot God in 1922 and Plunder in 1923.

In 1931, William relocated from New York City to Hollywood, where he signed as a contract player at Warner Bros. and rose quickly to stardom during the Pre-Code era of early sound cinema. He became closely associated with roles as ruthless businessmen, appearing in films such as Under 18, Skyscraper Souls, The Match King, and Employees' Entrance. He also portrayed crafty legal figures in The Mouthpiece and in four Perry Mason films, making him the first actor to bring Erle Stanley Gardner's fictional defense attorney to the screen. He played outright charlatans in films such as The Mind Reader. The Village Voice, looking back at his career in 2011, dubbed him the King of Pre-Code.

Not all of William's roles were villainous. He played Dave the Dude in Frank Capra's Lady for a Day and appeared as a cuckolded husband in Three on a Match in 1932. He took on a comedic supporting role as a pompous older brother in Gold Diggers of 1933. In 1934, he portrayed Julius Caesar in Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra, starring Claudette Colbert, and appeared alongside Colbert again the same year as her character's love interest in Imitation of Life. He played the musketeer d'Artagnan in The Man in the Iron Mask in 1939, directed by James Whale.

The studios also cast William extensively in series films centered on detectives and crime solvers. He portrayed the reformed jewel thief known as the Lone Wolf in nine films beginning with The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt in 1939, and appeared as Detective Philo Vance in The Dragon Murder Case in 1934 and The Gracie Allen Murder Case in 1939. He starred as a character based on Sam Spade, renamed Ted Shane, in Satan Met a Lady in 1936. Additional notable roles included Mae West's manager in Go West, Young Man in 1936, a jealous district attorney in Wives Under Suspicion in 1938, copper magnate Jesse Lewisohn in Lillian Russell in 1940, and Dr. Lloyd in The Wolf Man in 1941. In 1945 he appeared in Strange Illusion, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, and his final film was The Private Affairs of Bel Ami in 1947, in which he played Laroche-Mathieu. On radio, William starred in the transcribed series Strange Wills.

Away from the screen, William was known as a private and shy individual who, along with his wife Helen, avoided public attention. He was also an avid amateur inventor and was personally involved in working his farm. William died on September 24, 1948, from multiple myeloma at the age of 53. Helen died a few months after him. In February 1960, William was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of his contributions to motion pictures.