William Delano Wilson (March 29, 1942 – October 6, 2018), known professionally as Scott Wilson, was an American film and television actor.
His breakout role was as real-life murderer Richard Hickock in the critically acclaimed film In Cold Blood (1967). He subsequently appeared in films like The Grissom Gang (1971), The New Centurions (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Right Stuff (1983), A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984), The Exorcist III (1990), Dead Man Walking (1995), Shiloh (1996) and its sequels, Pride (1998), The Way of the Gun (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), The Last Samurai (2003), Junebug (2005), and The Host (2006). He received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his role in William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration (1980).
On television, Wilson played Hershel Greene on the AMC series The Walking Dead (2011–14; 2018). He also had a recurring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as casino mogul Sam Braun, as well as a lead role on the Netflix series The OA as Abel Johnson.
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Early life and education
Wilson was born William Delano Wilson in the small Southern town of Thomasville, Georgia. He attended Southern Polytechnic State University, where he studied architecture and played basketball, but on a whim decided to hitchhike to Los Angeles in pursuit of an acting career. He worked several odd jobs while appearing in local theater productions.
Career
In his first three films he portrayed characters suspected of murder. In his debut film, a 25-year-old Wilson played a murder suspect in In the Heat of the Night (1967). Director Norman Jewison spotted him a local stage production, and cast him thanks to his quintessential "everyman Southerner" appearance and mannerisms.
His follow-up role, in the same year, was in the film version of In Cold Blood, based on the book of the same name by Truman Capote. Wilson portrayed real-life murderer Richard Hickock, while Robert Blake played his partner, Perry Smith.
Director Richard Brooks cast Wilson and Blake in the starring roles specifically because they were unknown at the time. The director passed over better-known actors, including Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, for the parts. Wilson later explained Brooks' casting motivations: "Brooks hired two 'unknowns' and he wanted to keep it that way. We were treated like two killers he had somehow run across."
The film earned Wilson an appearance on the cover of Life magazine, published on May 12, 1967. Wilson was just 25 years old at the time. The cover features Truman Capote standing between Wilson and Blake on an empty highway in Kansas. The caption, Nightmare Revisited, appears with them on the cover.
In 1974 Wilson appeared as a revengeful cuckold bearing his same surname in The Great Gatsby opposite Robert Redford. He received a 1980 Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Ninth Configuration by director and friend William Peter Blatty. He lost the Golden Globe to Timothy Hutton. In 1995 Wilson got attention for his role as a prison chaplain in Dead Man Walking, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, based on the book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean.
Wilson's filmography also includes The Gypsy Moths, The Right Stuff, A Year of the Quiet Sun, Malone, The Grass Harp, Junebug, The Host, Monster, Young Guns II, Pearl Harbor, Big Stan, Judge Dredd, the Shiloh film series and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Wilson has filmed on location in South Korea, Japan and Spain. Wilson had a recurring role in several episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Sam Braun, father of crime-scene investigator Catherine Willows (portrayed by Marg Helgenberger). Braun was killed off in the episode "Built to Kill, Part 2". In the fall of 2011 he also made an appearance opposite Laura Dern in the HBO series, Enlightened.
Personal life
Wilson married his Korean wife, Siok Tian Heavenly Koh, in 1977.
Death
Wilson died from leukemia at his home in Los Angeles, on October 6, 2018, at the age of 76. The premiere episode of The Walking Dead's ninth season, "A New Beginning", which aired the next day, was dedicated to Wilson's memory which is shown in the final credits of the episode.
