The Tragic Death Of The Defiant Ones Star Cara Williams

Cara Williams died on December 9 at her Beverly Hills home, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The actor was 96 years old, and her cause of death was reported as a heart attack. 

In a Twitter tribute, Williams' great-nephew, Richard Potter, wrote that she "might have been the last surviving Golden Age of Hollywood actress." In 1959, her role in "The Defiant Ones" earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and she received an Emmy nod for playing one of the title roles in the '60s sitcom "Pete and Gladys," which co-starred Harry Morgan. The Brooklyn native worked with Tony Curtis on "The Defiant Ones," and he remembered her fondly. "There's nobody like her. She's a very sexy girl, but she's also like a man," he once said in an interview with TV Guide (via THR). "She's like having a best friend you'd like to kiss."

Williams was married three times. She and her first husband, Alan Gray, had a daughter named Justine Jagoda, who described Williams as "everything that you could wish for in a mother and more" in a statement to Variety. Williams' second husband was Drew Barrymore's father, John Drew Barrymore. They had a son who also became an actor, John Blyte Barrymore. Her final marriage was to Asher Dann, who worked in real estate after a brief acting career. Williams was once friends with Lucille Ball, but she made a blunder that deeply upset the "I Love Lucy" star.

Nicole Kidman plays Lucille Ball in the biopic "Being the Ricardos," which doesn't explore the relationship between Cara Williams and Ball. However, the two women were friends for a time. They both possessed red hair and the ability to contort their faces to comedic effect, so it's not surprising that Williams has been compared to the "I Love Lucy" star. When Williams learned that Ball wanted to meet her, she originally wasn't interested. In a 2017 interview with The Midnight Palace, she revealed that she changed her mind when she was informed that Ball praised her for having "the greatest comedy timing."

The two remained close until Williams received an invite to the wedding of Ball's daughter, Lucie Arnaz. Williams thought the date of the event was one day later, and she ended up playing cards when she was supposed to be at the wedding. "I think that really killed a lot of our friendship because I really don't think [Ball] believed me," Williams said of her error. She also suggested that maybe Ball reached out to her to begin with because "she felt guilty" about the cancellation of "Pete and Gladys" in 1962 and possibly "had something to do with it." That same year, "The Lucy Show" premiered.

In 1964, Williams did get a consolation prize in the form of her own sitcom, "The Cara Williams Show," but it lasted just one season.