Cara Williams (born Bernice Kamiat; June 29, 1925) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her role as Billy's Mother in The Defiant Ones (1958), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and for her role as Gladys Porter on the 1960-1962 CBS television series Pete and Gladys, for which she was nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy.
Cara Williams was born Bernice Kamiat in Flatbush, Brooklyn, the daughter of New York-born Florence "Flora" (née Schwartz 1897–1990), whose parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants, and Benjamin Irving Kamiat (1865–1957), a Jewish immigrant born in Lemberg, Austrian Empire. Benny Kamiat was a well-known figure in Brooklyn and a journalist for the Brooklyn Eagle. Her mother worked as a manicurist next to Brooklyn's Albee Theatre, where she would leave her daughter Bernice with the theatre owners to babysit. Young Bernice began making impersonations of all the screen stars she watched in the movies there, and knew she wanted to be an actress. Her parents divorced, and her mother relocated her to Los Angeles, where she chose Cara Williams as her stage name and attended the Hollywood Professional School. Soon, she began performing in radio and at the age of 16 in 1941, she was signed to a film contract and began performing in bit roles, credited as Bernice Kay.