Cara Williams, TV star and Oscar nominee for ‘The Defiant Ones,’ dead at 96

Cara Williams, who received an Oscar nomination for “The Defiant Ones” and later starred in a pair of sitcoms during the 1960s, died Thursday. She was 96.

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Williams died Thursday of a heart attack at her home in Beverly Hills, her daughter, Justine Jagoda, told The Hollywood Reporter.

“My mom was a loving soul, she would take you in her arms and always help you,” Jagoda said.

Born Bernice Kamiat in Brooklyn, New York, on June 29, 1925, Williams began working as an actress when she was a child, Variety reported. After her parents divorced, she relocated to Hollywood with her mother. At age 13, Williams did voices for Porky Pig cartoons, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

When she was 16, Williams was signed by 20th Century Fox and began appearing in small, often unbilled parts in films such as “Wide Open Town,” “Happy Land” and “In the Meantime, Darling.”

Williams worked with Audrey Hepburn in “We Go to Monte Carlo” in 1951, shared a dance with James Cagney in 1959′s “Never Steal Anything Small,” and also starred in “The Man From the Diners’ Club” in 1963.

Williams was married to actor John Drew Barrymore, the son of movie legend John Barrymore and the father of actress Drew Barrymore, from 1953 to 1959, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

She was nominated for an Oscar in the 1958 film, “The Defiant Ones,” which starred Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as a pair of escaped convicts who were chained together. Williams played the mother of a young boy who falls for Curtis’ character.

Curtis once told TV Guide that Williams “is a complete original. There’s nobody like her. She’s a very sexy girl, but she’s also like a man. I’ll tell you what she’s like: She’s like having a best friend you’d like to kiss.”

Williams earned an Emmy nomination for her lead performance as Gladys in CBS’ “Pete and Gladys,” which debuted in September 1960, Variety reported. Williams starred with future “M*A*S*H” star Harry Morgan, playing a scatterbrained woman who often found herself in crazy situations, not unlike another redhead of that period, Lucille Ball.

“When I was playing Gladys, people would say, ‘That’s not a character part for her, that’s her (in real life),’” Williams once said. “I’m a little ditzy.”

The show received an Emmy nomination in 1962.

WIlliams later starred in her own series, “The Cara Williams Show,” with Frank Aletter, according to Variety.

Williams appeared on three episodes of “Rhoda” as a work associate of David Groh’s character, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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