Samm-Art Williams, Tony-Nominated Playwright and ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ Producer, Dies at 78

Samm-Art Williams, a Tony-nominated playwright, actor and director and an executive producer on NBC’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has died. He was 78.

Williams died Monday in Burgaw, North Carolina, his cousin Carol Brown told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Mr. Williams’ contributions to American theater and television will live on, but he will be greatly missed,” she said in a statement.

In the theater community, Williams is perhaps best known as the Tony-nominated playwright of Home, which was first directed by Douglas Turner Ward and produced on Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1980. The show is set to return to Broadway on June 5, with Kenny Leon directing.

In addition to its Tony nom for best play, Home received an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk nomination, an NAACP Image Award and a North Carolina Governor’s Award.

Williams also wrote Welcome to Black River, Friends and other plays produced in New York, Los Angeles and beyond.

For the screen, Williams wrote episodes of Cagney & Lacey, The New Mike Hammer, Miami Vice and The Debbie Allen Special. He was nominated for two Emmys, as a producer on Frank’s Place in 1988 and Motown Returns to the Apollo in 1985.

From 1990-93, he served as an executive producer on Will Smith’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Williams was born in Philadelphia on Jan. 20, 1946, and studied at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

During the course of his career, Williams received the Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Playwriting and other awards for writing.

He had no spouse or children.