Bradford Cody "Brad" Williams (January 8, 1951 – October 17, 1993) was an American puppeteer, designer and teacher. He died from injuries sustained in a car accident at the age of 42. He is named as one of the puppet artists whose legacy inspired the

Eugene O'Neill Theater Center The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theater company founded in 1964 by George C. White. It is commonly referred to as The O'Neill. The center has received two Tony Awards, the 1979 Special Awa ...

's National Puppetry Conference, an annual celebration of contemporary puppet theatre.

Early life

Bradford Cody Williams was born to Robert Cody "Bob" Williams and Patricia Packard Williams on January 8, 1951 in

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

Career

Williams grew up watching the '' Kukla, Fran and Ollie'' show and, after working with its creator Burr Tillstrom on the 25 year retrospective show, he enrolled at

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

and gained a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree in puppet arts. Williams co-founded Pandemonium Puppet Company, creating and performing characters for the children's television program '' Pinwheel''.https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19920820&id=rZRGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JPgMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4797,4190939 Newspaper Article He was the main actor of the television program ''Hocus Focus'' and also appears on the show credits as a graphic artist. He has also been described as a master calligrapher and logo designer, having created the logo for the 1989 Puppeteers of America Festival. He toured extensively with live puppet shows – often with his personal hand and rod puppet Zabar, an extraterrestrial found wandering the streets of the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

Death

Williams was struck by a car on October 17, 1993, in

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the List of municipalities in Mi ...

. He was rushed to Butterworth Hospital, where he later died due to complications from his injuries, aged 42. He is survived by his mother, his sister Lorma Williams Freestone, his brother-in-law Kenneth Dale Freestone, and his nieces and nephews Aubrey Freestone Garcia and her husband, Manny Garcia; Cody Scott Freestone and his wife, Amber Emery, and Robert Schrader and Wayne Schrader. Williams' father died at his home on July 11, 2011 at the age of 89.

Exhibitions

His work was featured in a 1996 exhibition called ''Puppetronics'' at Stamford Museum and Nature Centre, with puppets displayed including his Rex and Rita Readasaurus characters, which were created for

Barbara Bush Barbara Pierce Bush (June 8, 1925 – April 17, 2018) was First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, as the wife of President George H. W. Bush, and the founder of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She previously was ...

's American literacy program. Williams' contribution to the field of puppetry was also recognized in a 1997 exhibition at the University of Connecticut's

Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry (BIMP) is a public museum of puppetry operated by the University of Connecticut and located in Storrs, Connecticut. Overview The Ballard houses one of the three largest puppetry collections in the Un ...

.http://advance.uconn.edu/1997/970523/05239715.htm University of Connecticut Exhibition Advance Notice

Teaching and volunteer work

Williams' obituary in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' noted his teaching and volunteer work, which included artist in residence roles at

Ithaca College Ithaca College is a private college in Ithaca, New York. It was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a conservatory of music and is set against the backdrop of the city of Ithaca (which is separate from the town), Cayuga Lake, waterfalls, and go ...

and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. He received a certificate of appreciation from the City of New York for his work in the pediatrics ward at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Brad 1951 births 1993 deaths American puppeteers Puppet designers University of Connecticut alumni People from White Plains, New York Hope College alumni Road incident deaths in Michigan Pedestrian road incident deaths