US Edition
Willie Garson, actor best known as Carrie’s gay friend in Sex and the City – obituary
As the witty talent agent Stanford Blatch he had some of the show’s best lines - but kept quiet about the fact that he was himself straight
Willie Garson, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 57, was an actor who achieved worldwide fame in Sex and the City as the talent agent Stanford Blatch, Carrie Bradshaw’s gay soulmate who was often referred to as the show’s “fifth lady”.
Across six series and two film spin-offs, he was on hand to offer pithy advice and support as Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her friends – played by Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis – negotiated the joys and perils of New York life.
Given some of the show’s best lines, he delivered them with panache. When Carrie stumbles on the catwalk and is stepped over by Heidi Klum, he exclaims: “Oh my God, she’s fashion roadkill!” And on another occasion, when Carrie calls him a “whore” he retorts: “I wish that were true.”
While Stanford was avowedly gay, and found a partner, a Broadway dancer, in the last two seasons of the show, the actor tended to downplay the fact that he was actually straight.
“For years I didn’t talk about it,” he said, “because I found it to be offensive to gay people – people playing gay characters jumping up and down screaming that they’re not gay, like that would somehow be a bad thing if they were.”
William Garson Paszamant was born into a Jewish family in Highland Park, New Jersey, on February 20 1964; his father had a business supplying televisions to hospitals. “It was a little Soprano-like,” he told an interviewer. “I really can’t go further into it.”
He studied at the Actors Institute in New York, going on to graduate with a theatre degree from Wesleyan University and a Masters from Yale Drama School.
He began accumulating credits in shows such as Family Ties, Cheers, Quantum Leap, Friends, Ally McBeal and The X-Files – as well as playing a heavy metal roadie in Twin Peaks – and had a small part in Groundhog Day as assistant to Bill Murray’s sour reporter.
He secured a recurring role in NYPD Blue, then in 1998 he began his stint as Stanford Blatch in Sex and the City. He had been friends with Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie Bradshaw, since the 1980s: “We were set up once, had a very long flirtation, and then just settled into being best friends, something I think really reads on the show,” he said in 2000.
Garson’s other major role was in the police drama White Collar (2009-14), as Mozzie, a conman with an eidetic memory and a head full of conspiracy theories. He was also in nine episodes of the Hawaii Five-0 reboot (2015-20) playing a former forger, and three episodes of the sci-fi series Stargate SG-1 (2000-06) as an alien-turned-screenwriter.
In all, he had around 170 roles on big and small screen; his films included Ruby (1992), in which he played Lee Harvey Oswald, and three Farrelly brothers films – Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary and Fever Pitch – as well as the art house classic Being John Malkovich and the body-swap comedy Freaky Friday.
He returned for the 2008 Sex and the City film spin-off and its 2010 sequel, in which his Stanford character marries an event planner, Anthony (played by Mario Cantone), in a ceremony officiated by Liza Minnelli. He had recently been working on the SATC reunion series (minus Kim Cattrall), And Just Like That …
Willie Garson had a long-term relationship, which reportedly foundered because his partner did not want children. In 2009 he adopted a seven-year-old son, and went on to serve twice as a spokesperson for National Adoption Day. His son survives him.
Willie Garson, born February 20 1964, died September 21 2021