WILLIAM DANIELS: Dare to DREAM

The Boy Meets World and St. Elsewhere alum shares his long journey with Closer

- Fortune Benatar

William Daniels has been an actor for the majority of his 96 years. His long career has included stints on Broadway, classic films including The Graduate, and popular television series including St. Elsewhere. However, he was unprepared for the kind of fame that playing teacher George Feeny on Boy Meets World would bring him so late in his career. “I didn’t realize how popular he was until one day I was walking down Eighth Avenue [in New York City],” he tells Closer. “A school bus was in front of me, and the students were getting off. They spotted me and started chanting, ‘Feeny! Feeny! Feeny!’ I ran around the corner and thought, ‘Oh, my God, this guy is popular!’ Over the years it has just increased.”

You’ve been performing since childhood. How did that happen?

I had a stage mother. My mother was intent on putting my sister and I into show business. She would keep track in the paper of anyone hiring children. That led us to a show called The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour at NBC in New York.

It was a variety show. What did you and your sister do on it?

Well, we auditioned as tap dancers, but the director stopped us and said, “This is radio. There’s no place for tap dancers, but if they sang...” So our mother dragged us home and taught us a song. My sister had the better voice. She took the melody and I sang harmony. We went back to the next meeting and we sang for him and he said, “That’s it,” and he put us in the show. 

By the time you were a teenager, you were on Broadway in Life With Father. How did you get that role?