Williams, Michael (1877–1950)

US journalist. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, he emigrated to the USA as a penniless youth. He was a newspaper reporter in Boston, New York, and San Francisco before a 1912 conversion to active Catholicism, which he recounted in a colourful memoir The Book of High Romance (1918). Seeking to create a Catholic intellectual periodical under lay auspices, he cofounded Commonweal magazine in 1914 and was its editor until 1937.

Williams, Michael (Leonard) (1935–2001)

English actor. After a long career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, including title roles in Troilus and Cressida (1968–69) and Henry V (1971), he became widely known as Mike in the television series A Fine Romance (1980–82), later appearing in Double First (1988), September Song (1993–95), and Conjugal Rites (1993–94).

Williams was born in Manchester, and made his West End debut as Bernard Fuller in Celebration (1961). His early Shakespearean roles included Guildenstern in Hamlet (1965), Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew (1967), and the Fool in King Lear (1968, 1976–77). He was married to the actor Judi Dench.