William McNamara Movies

Lew Grade is the executive producer of this British-German co-production, a romantic drama that gets underway in Las Vegas with several casino cameos (Robert Wagner, Roddy McDowall, Jill St. John, William Hootkins). Lymphoma leaves Vegas croupier Maggie (Maria Pitillo) only a few weeks to live, so she sets out to visit a weeping Madonna statue in Italy where she meets American pianist Mike (William McNamara) while hitchhiking to Trevino. Monsignore Calogero (Tom Conti) orders the church closed, and the statue is found to be a fake. As Mike and Maggie hope for a miracle, Mike departs to participate in a Naples piano competition. Watch for composer Lalo Schifrin conducting his own two piano concertos in the final scenes. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

To paraphrase the late, great NBC programming executive Brandon Tartikoff, the television industry is comprised of two different groups of people: The "beggars," those actors, writers, directors, and producers who tirelessly and relentlessly package and pitch ideas, concepts, and premises for new TV series; and the "choosers," those elite network chieftans who make the final decisions as to what will or will not be seen on the air. With this in mind, Beggars and Choosers was the perfect title for a raunchy, ribald cable-TV satirical sitcom, set behind the walls of a major (but not too major) television network. The setting for this weekly, 60-minute series was the headquarters of the LGT network, which, though it ran a distant last to such prestigious webs as ABC, CBS, and NBC, still managed to score a few ratings successes, notably the Seinfeld clone "Peter's Pals" and the ethnic soaper "Puerto Vallarta." Like most contemporary entertainment-manufacturing concerns, LGT was a hotbed of betrayals, double-crosses, backstabbings, dark intrigues, covert conspiracies, and sexual shenanigans. Heading the huge cast of regulars and recurring characters was Brian Kerwin as youthful LGT president Brian Kerwin, who manfully kept his wits about him while swimming with sharks at the workplace and dealing with domestic problems engendered by his demanding wife Cecile (Isabella Hoffman) and his troublesome teenaged children Audrey (Keegan Connor Tracy) and Cary (Kaj-Erik Eriksen). Co-starring with Kerwin was Charlotte Ross as Lori Vopone, LGT's barracuda-like vice president of development, who would stop at literally nothing to get bigger ratings and advance her own career. Others in the cast included Tuc Watkins as the network's closeted homosexual casting executive Malcolm Laffley, who spent most of the first season trying to work up the courage to "out" himself; William McNamara as supercilious talent agent Brad Advail, who was convinced that his success hinged upon which pair of socks he wore on any given day; Christopher Kennedy as Marty Hertz, LGT's bean-counting head of business affairs; and Sheila Moore as the network's hypersensitive vice president of standards and practices. Initially, LGT was owned by the senile, semi-comatose E. L. Ludden (Bill Morey) and his scheming trophy wife Lydia (Carol Kane). During a bitter power struggle between Mr. and Mrs. Ludden, control of the network was seized by flaky dot.com billionaire Dan Falco (Beau Bridges), who shortly thereafter turned the business over to his nitwit brother Freddie (James Belushi). The gloriously uninhibited and diabolically clever Beggars and Choosers debuted over cable's Showtime network on June 19, 1999, remaining in first-run for the next two seasons. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this sports drama, a tough and ambitious woman follows her dream to succeed in a field where few women have dared to go. Isabelle Alvarado (Sophia Adella Hernandez) grew up in a tough neighborhood in East Los Angeles, where her father once had a promising career as a professional boxer. He set sports aside and took a job as a policeman, and her mother when Isabelle was still a child. Now that Isabelle has grown to adulthood, she wishes to follow in her father's footsteps and become a female boxer. She discovers, however, that in a sport dogged by corruption and dominated by men, the climb to the top is steep and slippery. Knockout also features Paul Winfield, William McNamara, and Tony Plana. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this made-for-cable action-drama, Oliver Sloan (Parker Stevenson) is the son of a Las Vegas resort magnate whose showplace hotel has just been given its grand re-opening. However, Sloan's board of directors is not happy with the hotel's profitability, and he knows he's about to be replaced. One evening, a fire breaks out on the 20th floor of the hotel; it soon becomes evident that the sprinkler systems in the hotel are not working, and Sloan begins to suspect that the fire did not happen by accident. Meanwhile, a number of guests are trapped as the fire rages out of control, including Jim (Meat Loaf), an engineer working for the hotel who tries to figure out a route to safety for himself and the guests, and Evans (William McNamara), a TV reporter who begins broadcasting live from the burning building. Trapped also features Callum Keith Rennie and Suki Kaiser. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This Hallmark Channel TV movie is one of a series starring John Larroquette as McBride (no first name), a hard-nosed cop turned compassionate defense lawyer, specializing in "lost causes." Serving on a jury in the trial of Claire Harriman (Paula Trickey), McBride is not persuaded that Claire attempted to poison her business-tycoon husband. Though the proceedings end in a mistrial, Claire's reputation is in tatters, and she turns to Bride in hopes of proving her innocence during the inevitable retrial. Although it turns out that practically everyone who knew Claire's late husband--especially the members of his immediately family--had ample motive and opportunity to bump him off, McBride begins to wonder if he has allowed his heart to rule his head, and that Claire may just be guilty after all. McBride: Murder Past Midnight initially aired February 4, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When a regular guy decides to reinvent himself, his life changes in ways he never could have imagined. Director Alex Nam takes the helm for this cheeky comedy that isn't afraid to get down and dirty. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi