How Did Hank Williams Die? The Country Music Star’s Death Cause Discussed

The biopic “I Saw the Light” focuses on Hank Williams’ personal struggles and rise to fame but omits details about his mysterious death.

On December 30, 1952, the 29-year-old Williams, troubled and thin, expressed a premonition to his wife Billie Jean, saying he felt as if he saw God approaching. This chilling remark precedes his death, adding an eerie layer to his story.

Within 48 hours of Hank Williams’ ominous prediction, he died, leading to a long-standing debate about the circumstances of his death.

“I think he had a profound sadness in him,” says Marc Abraham, writer and director of the new biopic.

“Tom [Hiddleston, the actor portraying Williams] puts across that impending sense of doom. Hank felt there was something bad around the corner.”

The widely accepted sequence of events leading up to Hank Williams’ death begins with him being driven to a New Year’s Eve show in Charleston, W.Va.

Due to inclement weather, the concert was canceled. Williams, who had a back problem and was given a sedative by a doctor known for dubious practices, stopped at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tenn., with college student Charles Carr as his driver.

Hank Williams, already intoxicated, was given a B12 shot and morphine by a hotel doctor.

On the night of December 31, 1952, as Carr tried to get him to a New Year’s Day show in Canton, Ohio, Williams appeared groggy and had to be carried to the car.

By the morning of January 1, 1953, Carr found Williams dead, with rigor mortis setting in. The crowd at the Palace Theatre in Canton responded by singing Williams’ song “I Saw the Light.”

Suspicion surrounded Hank Williams’ final journey from the start. Officials attributed his death to heart failure but noted contusions on his body, suggesting he had recently been in a fight.

Carr’s nervous account and inconsistent witness statements, including claims of a soldier in the car, raised questions of foul play.

Some biographers, like Colin Escott, suggest Williams might have died at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, with Carr unknowingly driving a corpse.

This theory was also hinted at in the initial police report. Carr remained silent about the journey for most of his life and passed away in 2013.

Jack Neely of the Knoxville History Project highlights local folklore that presents a different version of events.

According to this lore, a former doorman at the Andrew Johnson Hotel claims Williams was conscious and joking when he left Knoxville.

Carr had also asserted that Williams was alive and briefly conversed with him during the drive.

Some local stories suggest Williams received an additional morphine shot at a Knoxville hospital, potentially leading to an overdose.

Due to the conflicting accounts and abundant speculation, both the biopic I Saw the Light and the 1964 film Your Cheatin’ Heart opted to exclude the final journey from their narratives.

Abraham, a writer for I Saw the Light, removed a 13-page scene depicting the journey, finding it anticlimactic. Neely notes that any version of events will inevitably face skepticism.