
He has been one of the most familiar faces in television for decades, but Star Trek fans will always know William Windom as the tragic figure of Commodore Matt Decker from “The Doomsday Machine.”
Windom starred for three years in the 1960s as Congressman Glen Morley in The Farmer’s Daughter sitcom, in the 1980-90s as Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder, She Wrote—and in 1969 cult fave My World and Welcome To It as the would-be Thurber-like cartoonist John Monroe, which won him an Emmy Award.
A 1923 native of New York City with a passion for chess and sailing, Windom leaped from Broadway to the early TV programs of his home city. His film roles included Gregory Peck’s onscreen courtroom opponent in To Kill a Mockingbird; later in his career, after guest-starring on hundreds of other top series including The Twilight Zone, he was also a regular in Parenthood and voiced “Uncle Chuck” for the animated Sonic the Hedgehog.