William Broderick Crawford (December 9, 1911 - April 26, 1986) was an Academy Award-winning American actor.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Crawford was early in his career stereotyped as a rough-talking tough guy, frequently playing the villain. His parents, Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick, were vaudeville performers; his mother had a minor career in Hollywood comedies.

Broderick Crawford gained fame in 1937, when he starred as Lenny in Of Mice and Men on Broadway. He moved to Hollywood afterward, but did not get the role in the film version. (The role instead went to Lon Chaney, Jr., who was himself thereafter typecast as a hulking brute.)

In 1949, Crawford was cast as Willie Stark (a character based on Louisiana politician Huey Long) in All the King's Men, for which Crawford won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The following year he starred in another smash hit film, Born Yesterday.

Despite these successes, Crawford's career suffered because of his typecasting and also his own sometimes belligerent personality. In 1955, prominent television producer Frederick Ziv decided the Academy Award winner was worth taking a chance on and offered Crawford the lead role as "Chief" Dan Mathews in the police drama Highway Patrol. This program became highly popular during its four-year (1955-1959) period of first-run syndication and remained a fixture on local stations for many years afterward. The role revived Crawford's career, and he concentrated on television for most of the remainder of his life. Until the mid-1960s, many of his television roles were for Ziv, who was willing to accept the occasional challenges in working with Crawford. Years later, Ziv matter-of-factly told an interviewer, "To be honest, Broderick could be a handful!"

Ironically, Crawford was also typecast in his television roles. He usually played a gruff but compassionate and fearless good guy. He appeared in very few American-based motion pictures after 1955, though he continued to accept occasional roles in European made films. Playing on the stereotypical tough cop of his famous TV role, he wore the trademark fedora and black suit when he made a memorable appearance as guest host of a 1977 episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live.

Crawford died in 1986 at the age of 74 in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a stroke. He is one of a handful of performers who have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame -- a star for motion pictures at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard and another star for television at 6734 Hollywood Boulevard.

Actor Broderick Crawford is best remembered for two roles, his Oscar-winning turn as Willie Stark in the original All the King's Men (1949), and as Chief Dan Matthews on the syndicated TV series "Highway Patrol" (1955). He was also memorable as Judy Holliday's boisterous boyfriend in the movie version of Born Yesterday (1950). He was born William Broderick Crawford on December 9, 1911 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick, two vaudeville performers. His mother eventually had a small movie career acting in comedies shot in Hollywood. Her son, the large and burly Broderick Crawford, was no one's idea of a leading man due to his rough-and-tumble looks, but he broke through as an actor playing John Steinbeck's simple-minded giant Lenny in the Broadway adaptation of Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men (1939). After his Broadway success, Crawford moved to Hollywood and made his cinema debut in the 1937 comedy Woman Chases Man (1937), in a supporting role to stars Joel McCrea and Miriam Hopkins. When producer-director Lewis Milestone was casting the movie version of Steinbeck's classic, he passed over Crawford and chose Lon Chaney Jr. to play Lenny. Chaney gave a wonderful performance, and Crawford was in peril of being overlooked, as there were not many good roles for a man with his hulking bulk and gravelly voice. After many supporting roles (including a memorable turn as a big but kind-hearted lug in the comedy Larceny, Inc. (1942))and a stint in the military during World War II, Crawford had his breakthrough role in Robert Rossen's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "All the King's Men". Crawford gave a masterful performance as the Southern politician modeled on Louisiana's Huey Long (I). In addition to the Oscar, he also won the New York Film Critics' Award as Best Actor. "All the King's Men" was a hit, as was "Born Yesterday" (Crawford replaced actor Paul Douglas (I), who had originated the role on Broadway, in this cast). However, he was unable to keep up his career due to typecasting as a crude, boorish brute. The fact that he was a hard drinker and was occasionally belligerent on-set didn't help his career prospects. Five years after copping the Academy Award, TV producer Frederick W. Ziv hired Crawford to play the lead role in his syndicated police drama, "Highway Patrol". The show ran for four seasons, and imprinted Crawford's character of Dan Matthews into a generation of Baby Boomers' minds in its first and subsequent runs in syndication on the boob tube. After being moribund in the early 1950s, Crawford's career was revived, and he generally eschewed making movies for TV for the rest of his life. Broderick Crawford continued to act almost up until his death in Rancho Mirage, California on April 26, 1986, He passed at the age of 74, after a series of strokes. Though he had a career that spanned 50 years, he never again got roles that brought out the true talent of the thespian under the gruff exterior.