‘Green Hornet’ Star Van Williams: The Actor With a Big Secret

THE GREEN HORNET, Van Williams, 1966-67 — (c) 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved.

What To Know

Van Williams, best known for playing the Green Hornet alongside Bruce Lee, had initial reservations about the role but continued to work in television before leaving show business for a career in communications and law enforcement.
After his acting career, Williams started a communications company, volunteered as a reserve deputy sheriff, and occasionally attended comic conventions, finding pride in his work through fan interactions.
Williams claimed late in life that during his time on The Green Hornet, he also worked covertly for the CIA, a claim he shared with writer Will Murray but which has never been officially confirmed.

There are lots of reasons why I loved The Green Hornet TV show when I was a kid: Despite its relatively short run on TV, the series, with Bruce Lee as Kato and Van Williams as the Green Hornet, was really well executed and a lot of fun to watch. I loved the theme music, the Green Hornet’s car, the Black Beauty, and all of the Green Hornet’s other amazing gadgets like the Hornet Sting, which would unlock any door and render other devices useless. At the time, however, I had no idea that Williams had a second career while he worked as an actor — but he would later claim that during the 1960s, he was also working abroad on behalf of the CIA.

How did Van Williams end up on The Green Hornet?

THE GREEN HORNET, Van Williams, Bruce Lee, 1966-1967

Prior to taking on the role of Britt Reid and his alter-ego, the Green Hornet, Van Williams starred in the TV detective series Bourbon Street Beat and its sequel Surfside 6. After that, he was a regular on the TV show The Tycoon. And then came the offer to put on the green trench coat and fedora.

Initially, Van had concerns about signing up for The Green Hornet. In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter quoted him as saying “When I was a kid I had actually been a fan of The Green Hornet when it was on the radio and in those serials at the theater, but I didn’t know if I wanted to star in a TV series like that. It was very similar to Adam West‘s show and seemed like something that would probably be the kiss of death to my career.”

However, after The Green Hornet ended, those concerns proved unfounded as Van made numerous guest appearances on shows like Mannix, Mission: Impossible, and Gunsmoke. And then, he finally decided that he’d had enough and left the world of showbiz behind for good. This meant that Van would turn down a major role in the TV series Falcon Crest, and much later on he would pass up an offer to make a cameo in the 2011 Green Hornet movie.

What did Van Williams do after The Green Hornet?

THE GREEN HORNET, Van Williams, Wende Wagner, 1966-67

After leaving the industry, Van started a communications company in Santa Monica, California, and he also volunteered his time as a reserve deputy sheriff for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. And every once in a while, he would hit a comic book convention with his old buddy Adam West.

It was Adam who had told Van that conventions were an opportunity to see how much shows like The Green Hornet and Batman meant to fans. Adam related that he always walked away from those events feeling better, feeling proud about the work that he had done. And you know what? Van discovered that Adam wasn’t wrong.

What was Van Williams’ big secret?

It was during a couple of those conventions where writer and novelist Will Murray got a chance to visit with Van. Those visits ended up being documented in Will’s article, “I Rode with the Green Hornet,” that can be found in the May 2021 issue of RetroFan magazine. It’s a great article full of fun remembrances, wonderful pictures, and one truly big secret finally revealed.

According to Van, there was a period of time when he would spend a couple of weeks in Hollywood and then jet halfway around the world to do who-knows-what on behalf of Uncle Sam. When Van shared that fact with Will, he also said that he would never, ever be able to divulge who he had been working for. Never.

However, a few years later, when the two met up again, Van let it slip: he had worked for the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Apparently, at the very same time that Van was filming The Green Hornet, he could also be found in countries like Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia. Van told Will that some of his experiences working for the CIA actually ended up in a Green Hornet comic book series that he helped write called Tales of the Green Hornet.

It’s interesting that a similar claim was made by Chuck Barris, who is perhaps best known as the host of The Gong Show, which was quite popular during the late 70s and early 80s. It is also important to acknowledge that neither claim has ever been acknowledged by government officials as factually correct. But, then again, why would they do that?