In 1930, she made a version of The Spoilers in which she played the role later portrayed by similar-looking Marlene Dietrich in the 1942 remake, while Gary Cooper played the part subsequently acted in the later film by John Wayne, perhaps the only time that Cooper and Wayne played precisely the same role.
Williams played "Cherry Malotte" in the first movie based upon Rex Beach's 1906 novel The Spoilers in 1914, a role portrayed in subsequent versions by Betty Compson (1930), Marlene Dietrich (1942), and Anne Baxter (1955).
Novelist Rex Beach moved to Rampart during the Klondike Gold Rush; although his prospecting efforts were of little success, the experience led to the publication of The Spoilers, one of three novels written by Beach that made it to Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1900s.