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Williams, who has owned a home in Greenwich, turns 58 on Thursday. The television personality, radio talk show host and actor was born July 3, 1956, in Baltimore.
Williams enlisted in the U.S. Marines upon graduating high school in 1974. He was recommended for, and accepted to, the Naval Academy preparatory school at Newport, R.I., then accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy. When he arrived at Annapolis on July 6, 1976, he was honorably discharged as a corporal from the Marines, and enlisted into the Navy as a midshipman.
He left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant, and received the Navy Achievement Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Navy Commendation Medal.
Later he began "The Montel Williams Show," which was syndicated by CBS Paramount Television, in 1991. In 1996 he received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Ratings for the show peaked during the 1996-97 season, with a 4.4 average rating. He was again nominated for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2002, and "The Montel Williams Show" was nominated for Outstanding Talk Show in 2001 and 2002.
He has also guest-starred in episodic television and off-Broadway plays. He also produced and starred in a short-lived television series called "Matt Waters," which appeared on CBS in 1996.
In 1997 he played Lt. Col. Northrop, a Nuclear Silo commander in the fictional movie "The Peacekeeper."
On April 6, 2009, Williams began hosting a daily radio show, "Montel Across America," on Air America Media.
He is also active with the nonprofit MS Foundation, which he founded in 1999 after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
He is a national spokesman of the Partnership for Prescription Assistance and became chief spokesman for the Poker Training Network in 2010. He currently is a spokesman for Money Mutual.
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