Montel Brian Anthony Williams or better known Montel Williams was born July 3, 1956 in Baltimore, Maryland. As a resident of Glen Burnie, Maryland, he was bused to Andover High School in neighboring Linthicum, Maryland where he was elected president of both his junior and senior classes. He was a good student, athlete and musician and active in county-wide student government issues in Annapolis, Maryland. His father, Herman Williams, Jr., was a firefighter who in 1992 became Baltimore's first African-American Fire Chief. Montel has five siblings. . Montel Williams is an American television personality, radio talk show host and actor. He is best known as host of the long-running The Montel Williams Show, and more recently as a spokesperson for the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA). Williams is also active with the non-profit MS Foundation, which he founded after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the late 1990s.
Montel Williams enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1974 and completed his recruit training at MCRD Parris Island, South Carolina. While training at Twentynine Palms, California, he was selected for training at the Naval Academy Preparatory School. A year later, he was accepted into the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Upon acceptance to the Naval Academy, he was discharged as a Corporal in the Marines and entered the academy in 1976. In 1980, he graduated with a degree in General Engineering and a minor in International Affairs. Williams was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy. Williams became a cryptology officer and served aboard USS Sampson during the U.S. invasion of Grenada. He also served as a Crypto Analyst at Ft. Meade, Md, for the NSA, and did three years on nuclear submarines. His awards include the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, two Navy Expeditionary Medals, two Humanitarian Service Medals, a Navy Achievement Medal, two Navy Commendation Medals and two Meritorious Service Medals. After 22 years of military service he departed as a Lieutenant Commander.
Montel began The Montel Williams Show (syndicated by CBS Paramount Television) in 1991. In 1996, Williams received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Ratings for the show peaked during the 1996-1997 season, with 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.
On January 30, 2008, Variety reported that CBS TV Distribution terminated The Montel Williams Show when key Fox-owned stations chose not to renew it for the 2008-09 season. It has been alleged that this resulted in part from an appearance on the show Fox & Friends in which Williams criticized the media's lack of coverage on the Iraq War, and took the hosts to task for their excessive coverage (along with the media in general) of the death of actor Heath Ledger, contrasted with the sparse coverage of U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq. Some have noted that one of the segment's hosts told viewers that Williams would return for further conversation after a commercial break, but that Williams was no longer on the set when the commercials ended. On May 16, 2008 the last episode of The Montel Williams Show aired.
On November 10, 2010, Oprah Winfrey invited Williams, along with former talk show hosts Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Ricki Lake and Sally Jessy Raphael as guests on her show. This will be the first time that she had fellow talkers appear together since their programs left the air.
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