Some thoughts about Guy Williams' bench
from Mary Sheeran, October 2002. On October 27, 2001, I took a walk in Central Park. I walked through the Ramble and up and down the wild areas, sat by the lake and watched the ducks and saw some strange bird I didn't recognize, found a quiet spot off the water, walked by the boat house and watched the people rowing on the water, walked down the Mall and found EB White's bench (near David Niven's), climbed up to the Shakespeare Garden where Richard Burton has a bench, and then up to Belvedere Castle where kids were playing good knight and bad knight...I saw families with strollers, people with dogs, people playing Frisbee and football an soccer...I went down to the Great Lawn and past Turtle Pond and on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, passing Cleopatra's Needle. On the way, I saw signs advocating daydreaming. 
I saw my city at play. You would never guess that grimness lay to the south or that grief howled in our hearts.
In my walk that October day, I came to the Olmstead Flower Bed off the Mall, and I suddenly noticed the benches with plaques on them. I'd never noticed them before. I stood in the plaza "reading the benches", enjoying the mellow weather - Indian summer, indeed - and then I could imagine Guy Williams' name on one of the benches. For an admirer of the late actor, after the Bronx Walk of Fame in May and the Hollywood Boulevard Star ceremony just that past August 2001, it probably seemed natural to think about putting the mark of the Guy on any flat surface around!
Guy Williams was a New Yorker. Born in the Bronx and raised in the city, he had pounded the pavements in Manhattan and lived there for several years, working as an actor, a model, studying at the famied Neighborhood Playhouse, and appearing on television. It was also during these New York years that he met Janice, proposed to her, and where they were married. So Manhattan figures largely in the early life and career of Guy Williams.<
As it turns out, Central Park featured large in Guy And Janice Williams' courtship, and in their early life together. During their courtship, Guy lived on the east side and Janice on the west. They'd meet in the Park and have breakfast at Rumpelmeyer's on Central Park South. Toni Williams shared her mother's memories of the early days of their marriage with us:
"They spent most of their time in Central Park. They'd go in at 66th Street and walk to Central Park East. Just past Tavern on the Green, there's a large flat area on the way to the chess tables. This is where one night, during a heavy snowstorm, my father stomped his footprints in the snow spelling out, "I love you" for my mother (she still tears up). About halfway across were the chess tables. If they had time, they'd stand and watch the players or my father would play as well. Then they'd either go to Rumpelmeyers at Central Park South or on across the park to their agencies to check in. Sometimes they enjoyed the Central Park Zoo. Often they'd walk to 86th and 5th on the way to the museum and pass Cleopatra's Needle."
After an enthusiastic response from the Guy Willliams Friends List, the largest and most active collective of Guy Williams' fans then, the project and the fundraising began: not just to adopt a bench but to donate money to Central Park, the extraordinary backyard to eight million people and host to all New York's visitors. I went bench hunting, and in the process, learned to love my "back yard" even more.
Wendell Vega and I took a tour by camera and shared the beauty of Central Park with the list, and across the country, people marveled at the size and beauty of Central Park and wanted to be a part of it.
Donations, small and large, began making their way into the fund. People gave what they could. Every dollar made a difference. There were so many angels. Ideas for fundraisers came in from Sue Kite and Janis Whitcomb. Sue Kite took charge of selling Diego/John Robinson mugs using Pat Crumpler's artwork on white porcelain mugs, an effort that boosted the fund by over $600 alone.
Randi Scott injected some excitement when she decided to auction off one of her Disney magazines and donate the proceeds to the bench fund. The magazine was a $40 Ebay value, but the bench brought out a mischievous competitive camaraderie at the midnight hour when online auctions go wild, and the magazine sold for over $100. Thus began the auctions. People donated memorabilia for the fund and as a way to share treasures: Cynthia Burge, Pat Crumpler, Sue Kite, Jill Panvini, Susan Pearce, and Susan Smallwood all made generous auction donations. The auctions also nudged other donations into the fund. With only a few nudges, the fundraising for the bench was relatively painless and even fun.
By July, we had $4000. We could start thinking of what to put on the plaque itself. This process began with a small committee called the Bench Markers: MaryAnn T. Beverly, Susan Kite, Shari Ann Snelling, Jo Worthington, and myself. We looked at inscription possibilities from "Guy Williams" to Guy's resume. It was a remarkable group that worked well together; one of us was always taking care of someone else's gridlock of the brain. Jo suggested "out of the night came magic", which sang for us. To the top of the plaque it went. In a few words, the inscription referred to the role of Guy's lifetime, Zorro, to John Robinson of "Lost in Space", solidified his history as a New Yorker, and that he and Janice had been so frequently in the Park, that it was a part of their life. The list voted on this as first among other choices to be the plaque inscription in August. "Out of the night came magic/Guy Williams (1924-1989)/The friends of Zorro & John Robinson/Salute the park Guy & Janice loved." Even though it captured a romantic moment in time, it seemed to leap ahead to the future, where hopes and dreams could begin again.
The inscription generated more generosity. By the beginning of September, I could head up to the offices of the Central Park Conservancy and nail the last bench nail in. The bench for Guy, #00760, was located at the Olmsted Flowerbed, exactly where the idea had been born, by the statue of Christopher Columbus, that Italian who made good with Spain. It would be within a hop, skip, and a jump from the chess tables, Sheep Meadow, beneath the beautiful old elms, and off the literary walk in the Mall. The bench rang with resonance having to do with Guy's life and interests, and it was in one of the most populated areas of the park.
The temporary plaque went up a few weeks later, and I ran up to spend a quiet lunch at Guy's bench. Someone passing by the bench looked at the plaque and started to sing, "Out of the night..." which won my applause. The New Yorkers took a meeting, all of us sitting on the bench - Wendell Vega, Maureen Gest, Julia Brooks, and myself, planning its dedication while sitting on the bench on one lovely Saturday. We couldn't stop talking.
Guy's bench is one of those little things that resonates with layers of meaning for many people. It is, however above all a tribute to Guy Williams and his hopes and dreams at one moment in his life, and an almost playful reminder about a man who acted for play, and who played Diego/Zorro without a seam.
Guy Williams has always carried this hero, Zorro, with him, for better or ill. He portrayed the hero of Spanish California with larger than life flair and swashbuckling panache that will resonate long after we've departed this planet. His Zorro/Diego was seamless, and he gave insightful performances in the many film and TV roles he also played. Who recognizes Zorro in John Robinson? Who could have thought that Guy Williams could portray doubt or insecurity, as he did as Will Cartwright on "Bonanza?"
Or pure malevolence, as he did on occasion in "Lost in Space?" But before he was Zorro or Diego or John Robinson or Will or Damon or Captain Sindbad, he enjoyed Central Park and the resources of his hometown, New York City.
Guy Williams was more than the characters he played, of course, as any actor is, and as fans are tempted to forget. He was someone with a wide range of interests and ideas, well read, articulate, and fabulous as a chess player and a fencer - which also means he was fabulously clever and strategic. I don't pretend to know Guy Williams; everything points to the fact that he had a great sense of wonder - he chafed at the bit in school himself! - but he had a phenomenal life of the mind. Music, literature, philosophy, theology, astronomy, politics - a very articulate, unique human being.
Although I have avoided connecting the bench with September 11, 2001, it is true that the events of that tragic day are why I was walking in the Park in the first place that October day. I still remember it being a perfect escape. Families were all over the Park, and many children were in costume, enjoying the Park's Halloween festivities. For weeks, I had been unable to play or to be creative. I couldn't write a word. The imaginative play - fantasy - which is inspired by the creative spirit at work in Central Park - is the direct opposite of war, destruction, and fear as well as the source of heroism. To me, adopting Guy's bench is an act, even if small of scale, of defiance against the destroyers of life and imagination.
Our act of giving a gift to Central Park and creating "Guy's bench" also pays tribute to someone who embodied a selfless hero who sought justice and freedom for the oppressed, playfully. Who inspired us as children to play. Who still inspires people to write and to imagine, and to offer help and friendship and hope. No human is perfect, but there was something in the way Guy Williams portrayed Zorro that nurtured enthusiasm, play, and a curiosity for something greater in life, as well as sweet memories.
I like to think that our gift to the Park will help to nurture the sense of wonder and care that Guy gave to us in his roles and to which he himself would embrace. I like to think that our gift to the Park will be giving help to a space that provides pleasure, soul refreshment, and wonder to many people and countless children.
Now in Central Park we have a spot set aside for his memory in a lovely place he loved, so that people of all ages enjoying the park or needing to get away from the pressures, and the strains (and grimness) of the city can remember the wonder he gave us, and perhaps tell their children when they are in the mood for a hero with flair, fun, and romance.
Those of us, his fans, who have participated in this small project, have contributed, in a small way, to the maintenance and the beauty of the awesome work that must go on in this Park to make it a free gift to the people - clean and beautiful, and safe for wildlife as well. A place where we can all go out and play.
Toni Williams shared the Williams' family's happiness about our adopting a bench for her father:
"What a wonderful success! I read the dedication to my mother, and it brought tears to her eyes. It really couldn't have been more perfect or beautiful. I can't thank you and this amazing group of friends enough for your thoughtfulness. This is a brilliant honor to both of my parents. It's as if you all captured a magnificent moment in time and saved it for us all. Blessings to you all. Warmly, Toni Williams"
Little things have a way of being the most important. It was a good thing to adopt a Central Park bench for Guy Williams. It is not just a bench, it is a way of taking pause and looking at life anew. It's simple, beautiful, it helps the soul, it contributes to nurturing wonder and play and fantasy. And it has Guy's name on it, which means something to us, to his family, to a whole legion of grown-up children who remember. 
And it means something to people we have not even met.
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