William Stanford Davis — Movies, TV Shows & Roles

Actor

1951-08-07 · St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. · Male

23 series in the catalog

William Stanford Davis (born August 7, 1951) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as school custodian Mr. Johnson on the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary (2021–present), for which he earned a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 54th NAACP Image Awards, an award he later won at the 57th NAACP Image Awards for the same role.
His career began with a minor role as a custodian on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful in 1995 and includes recurring roles on the Showtime television series Ray Donovan and the Apple TV+ television series Swagger.
Early life
Davis was born on August 7, 1951 in The Ville in northern St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended an all-Black elementary school before going to an integrated school in fifth grade. After graduating from Northwest High School, he went to Lincoln University, a historically Black university (HBCU) in Jefferson City, Missouri. He was inspired to become an actor during high school, when a teacher brought him to see the Negro Ensemble Company perform. From high school to college, he was the frontman for the pop and R&B band The Fabulous Paramount Revue, which opened for The O'Jays among other acts before disbanding during the Vietnam War.
Career
He worked as a radio personality at a country radio station in Texas before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting at age 33, inspired by seeing Sidney Poitier in the 1958 film The Defiant Ones. His car caught on fire which led to him staying in Los Angeles. His first role was as a custodian on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful in 1995.
Davis is a member of the Actors Studio. He had minor roles on the TNT series Snowpiercer, the NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the ABC series The Practice, the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Perry Mason, on the OWN series If Loving You Is Wrong, and in the films So B. It, Please Stand By, Holly Day, Dead Women Walking, Adopt a Highway, and A Holiday Chance. He had recurring roles as Coach Max on the Apple TV+ series Swagger and as Potato Pie on the Showtime series Ray Donovan.
Davis stars in the Quinta Brunson-helmed ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary as Mr. Johnson, the eccentric longtime janitor of the show's titular elementary school, in 2021. He auditioned over Zoom and was meant to only be a guest star but soon became a recurring character, appearing in all 12 episodes of the show's first season. He became a series regular in its second season, the first series regular role of his career. He partially based his portrayal of the character on his paternal grandmother, who he described as a "filter-less" "conspiracy theorist" and "the nosiest woman in the neighborhood". For his role on Abbott Elementary, he was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the 54th NAACP Image Awards in 2023. He was inducted into Phi Beta Sigma fraternity as an honorary brother at their 2023 conclave, held in Houston. Davis won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2022 and received a second nomination in 2024.