Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#27678
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Clarence Williams III represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Clarence is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Clarence Williams III appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Clarence. The Legend of 1900 is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Lee Daniels, Gary Fleder, John Frankenheimer and others, Clarence Williams III helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Legend of 1900 (1998) as Jelly Roll Morton · The Butler (2013) as Maynard · Deep Cover (1992) as Taft
Career snapshot
Ranked #27678 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1984–2013
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
The Legend of 1900
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
The Legend of 1900
Most frequent director
Bill Duke
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Bill Duke
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.6
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2010s
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Butler — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Purple Rain.
Most productive era
1990s
7 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.83 films | — | 7.31 film |
| Action | — | 6.32 films | 5.92 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.43 films | 5.92 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.64 films | 5.71 film | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1984Purple Rain
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Father.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2013The Butler
The current state of the argument, as Maynard.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
11 of 11 films
as Jelly Roll Morton
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
as Taft
Directed by Bill Duke
as Father
Directed by Albert Magnoli
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Jelly Roll Morton
The Legend of 1900 (1998)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jelly Roll Morton gives Clarence Williams III a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Maynard
The Butler (2013)
Performance score7.2
The Butler asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maynard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Taft
Deep Cover (1992)
Performance score7.0
Deep Cover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Taft is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Father
Purple Rain (1984)
Performance score6.8
Purple Rain asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Father is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Jelly Roll Morton
Start here. The Legend of 1900 is the clearest statement of what Clarence Williams III does — accessible, 170 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Clarence at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Purple Rain (1984)
Keeps the music register of The Legend of 1900 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Deep Cover (1992)
A deliberate change of key after Purple Rain — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Life (1999)
Keeps the crime register of Deep Cover but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Butler (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Life — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bill Duke
Director
2 films together
Notably Deep Cover
Albert Magnoli
Director
1 film together
Notably Purple Rain
William Lustig
Director
1 film together
Notably Maniac Cop 2
Johnny Depp
Director
1 film together
Notably The Brave
Giuseppe Tornatore
Director
1 film together
Notably The Legend of 1900
Simon West
Director
1 film together
Notably The General's Daughter
Ted Demme
Director
1 film together
Notably Life
John Frankenheimer
Director
1 film together
Notably Reindeer Games
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Impostor
Lee Daniels
Director
1 film together
Notably The Butler
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bill Duke
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Deep CoverGiuseppe Tornatore
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Legend of 1900Lee Daniels
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ButlerTed Demme
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LifeAlbert Magnoli
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Purple RainSimon West
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The General's DaughterGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ImpostorJohnny Depp
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BraveWilliam Lustig
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maniac Cop 2John Frankenheimer
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Reindeer GamesSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Impostor
as Secretary of Defense (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Clarence Williams III has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
29 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Deep Cover
as Taft
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The General's Daughter
as Colonel George Fowler
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Reindeer Games
as Merlin
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Legend of 1900
as Jelly Roll Morton
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Life
as Winston Hancock
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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