Billy Dee Williams

At 87 years old, Billy Dee Williams has this physical status:

William December "Billy Dee" Williams Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor, voice actor, and artist.

Lando Calrissian is the best known actor in the Star Wars franchise, first in the 1980s and then in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), marking one of the longest stretches between onscreen portrayals of a character by the same actor in American cinema history.

Williams was born in New York City and raised in Harlem with his twin sister Loretta.

In 1945, he made his Broadway debut in The Firebrand of Florence at age seven.

He later graduated from The High School of Music & Art and Art, received a painting scholarship to the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, where he was the recipient of a Hallgarten Award for painting in the mid-1950s.

He returned to acting, film, and television to fund his art supplies.

He continued creating art, and his work has since been seen in galleries and museums around the world.

Williams' debut in The Last Angry Man (1959) brought him to national prominence, but he gained a Grammy award for Best Actor in Brian's Song (1971), earning him an Emmy nomination.

He has appeared in at least 70 films in the last six decades, including critically acclaimed and famous ones, Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and Mahogany (1975), which both starred Williams alongside Diana Ross; and Nighthawks (1981).

He appeared in Lando Calrissian (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983), his first African-American actor with a significant role in the franchise.

In addition, he played Lando in video games and animated films.

In 1984, he was inducted into the Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame, and in 1985, he became a member of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Harvey Dent, a Batman (1989) actor who also appeared in Two-Face, which he also did for The Lego Batman Movie (2017), started another long-running franchise friendship.

Williams' television career began in 1966, and he has appeared in numerous films in Gideon's Crossing; Dynasty, General Hospital: Night Shift; and General Hospital.

Several cameos and support roles included being partnered with Marla Gibbs on The Jeffersons, 227, and The Hughleys.

Voice acting in the film Titan Maximum (2009) and appearance on the reality show Dancing with the Stars (2014).

His work has earned him numerous accolades and accolades, including three NAACP Image Awards and the NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early life and education

William December Williams Jr. was born in New York City, the son of Loretta Anne (1915–2016) elevator operator and aspiring Montserrat performer, as well as William December Williams Sr. (1909–1973), an African-American caretaker with traces of Texas. He grew up in Harlem on 110th Street, between Lenox and 5th, directly across from Central Park North-110th Street station. "They were fantastic, and I ended up working with a lot of those guys," the Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976) said. Loretta and his twin sister were raised by their maternal grandmothers as their parents worked multiple jobs. His mother had been singing, painting, theatre, and other artistic pursuits for years, and Billy Dee will remain a fan of opera, painting, and similar creative experiences. He made his Broadway debut at age 7 in The Firebrand of Florence, Kurt Weill, and Ira Gershwin's operetta starring Lotte Lenya in March 1945. His father, who worked at the theatre, volunteered him for the role, which he found boring.

Williams was aspired to be a painter at Booker T. Washington Junior High School, where he aspired to be a painter. He graduated from LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan, 1955, where he majored in fine arts with a focus on visual arts. Fame (1980) and its related television series would follow the school later. While he was a student at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design in New York, which later changed its name to National Academy of Design, he went to study with a focus on "historical principles of painting." He was nominated at eighteen or nine years old for a Guggenheim Fellowship award for "creative ability in the arts" and received a Hallgarten Prize in the mid-1950s. Despite receiving scholarships for school tuition, he began to pay for his paints, supplies, and canvasses. A Taste of Honey was his first Broadway performance "big break." He continued to fail as an actor for ten years, appearing in small and large theaters, and "slowly moving into television and film." He became interested in the Stanislavsky Method during art school, experiencing it in a different way from presenting it, to mobilize an actor's conscious thought and spark emotional response and subconscious behavior, and started attending the Harlem Actors Workshop. Blacklisted actor Paul Mann, who welcomed actors of all races, was a member of the academy; Williams also studied there under Sidney Poitier. He first thought of his acting as a way to pay for his art supplies, but by the 1960s, he began to "devote all of his energy to results." He became an actor agent through a friend and then spent time on Broadway.

Personal life

Williams has been married three times, has three children, and two grandchildren. In 1959, his first marriage was to Audrey Sellers. They were divorced some years ago, after which he seems to have become depressed. "I was very depressed, broke, and distraught," he said, "my first marriage was on the rocks." Corey Dee Williams, their son, was born in 1960. In 1968, Williams married actress and comedian Marlene Clark in Hawaii. In 1971, the couple separated. In 1971, he moved from New York City to California.

On December 27, 1972, he married Teruko Nakagami. Miyako (born 1962), the daughter of her previous marriage to musician Wayne Shorter, was born in 1962. Hanako, their daughter (born 1973), and they have a son. In 1984, he bought a "Zen-like contemporary" home in Beverly Hills, California's Trousdale Estates neighborhood; he sold it in 2012. He requested an amicable divorce from Nakagami in 1993, but the two reconciled and found they were back together in 1997.

Williams was arrested on January 30, 1996, after reportedly attacking his live-in girlfriend, who the police did not recognize. He had posted a US$50,000 bail. The woman had minor bruises and scratches, according to L.A. police. Charges of misdemeanor battery and dissuading a witness were dismissed by the district attorney's office. The woman later pleaded guilty to the incident and hoped the police would dismiss the lawsuit. Williams agreed to 52 counseling sessions as part of a plea bargain. Williams claims he never slapped or assaulted women in a 2019 interview.

In an interview, Williams discussed his feminine face in a lengthy interview, and referred to himself in masculine and feminine pronouns. Williams may have been gender fluid, according to media reports, but he clarified that he was referring to anima and animus: the feminine side of man and the masculine side of women in Jungian psychology.

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Career

In 1945, Williams first appeared on Broadway in The Firebrand of Florence. In 1960's version of The Cool World, he returned to Broadway as an adult. In 1960, he appeared in A Taste of Honey. I Have a Dream, a 1976 Broadway revival, was directed by Robert Greenwald and starred Martin Luther King Jr. as a replacement for James Earl Jones in the role of Troy Maxson.

Williams made his film debut in 1959 in The Last Angry Man, opposite Paul Muni, in which he played a delinquent young man. He was dissatisfied with "paucity of parts for leading black men" in the 1960s, and the bulk of roles he desired went to Sidney Poitier. He loved acting and television, but "his slow-building film career ate at him." "LSD saved my life,'s apopsia, a common hallucinogenic drug during the 1970s hippie revival. I wasn't doing it for the sake of getting high. "It let me get inside of myself." Otherwise, he is anti-drug.

He rose to fame after appearing in Brian's Song (1971), in which he appeared alongside his friend Brian Piccolo (James Caan), during Piccolo's fight with terminal cancer. Both Williams and Caan were nominated for Emmy Awards for their performances. Williams said that the role was one of which he was most proud, "It was really a love story." Between the two guys. There are no children without sex. ... It ended up being a kind of breakthrough in terms of racial discrimination.

Williams' success with Brian's Song earned him a seven-year deal with Motown's Berry Gordy. After appearing in a string of critically acclaimed and well-known films, many of which were in the "blaxploitation" style, he became one of America's most well-known black film actors of the 1970s. Louis McKay, Billie Holiday's husband, appeared in Motown Productions' Academy Award-nominated Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues in 1972. "He became a full-fledged sex symbol, portrayed as the 'black Clark Gable.' Diana Ross appeared in Lady Sings the Blues opposite Williams; Motown paired the two of them again three years later in the profitable sequel to Mahogany.

In The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Williams was cast as Lando Calrissian, making him the first African-American actor to appear in the Star Wars film. "Lando was always written as a complicated, contradictory, nuanced character," J. J. Abrams, who will direct Williams in the ninth installment film in 2019, said. Billy Dee played him to perfection,... It wasn't just that people of color were being seen represented; they were being seen in a rich, wonderful, mysterious way." In Return of the Jedi (1983), he would reprise his role. He appeared as a cop in the thriller Nighthawks (1981), and between the two films. Lando Calrissian's charm as a hero was deemed by audiences. In two episodes of the animated television series Star Wars Rebels, Williams performed the role in the 2002 video game Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, the audio dramatization of Dark Empire, The Empire Strikes Back, and The National Public Radio adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back, two productions for the Star Wars: Battlefront series. Fans of Calrissian's death from the first film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, were dissatisfied, but in July 2018 it was announced that he would reprise his role in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), one of the longest intertitles between onscreen portrayals of a character played by the same actor in American cinema history.

In 1989's Batman as district attorney Harvey Dent, a part that was supposed to develop into Dent's alter-ego, villain Two-Face, in sequels. However, that never came true; he was supposed to reprise his role in the sequel Batman Returns, but his character was cut and replaced with villain Max Shreck. Schumacher hired Tommy Lee Jones for the role after Joel Schumacher stepped in to direct Batman Forever, where Two-Face was supposed to be a secondary villain. There was a rumor that Schumacher had to pay Williams a fee in order to hire Jones, but Williams denied that it was true: "You only get paid if you do the film." I had a two-picture contract with Star Wars. They paid me for that, but Batman had only one picture contract. In the 2017 film The Lego Batman Movie, Williams later performed Two-Face.

On the short-lived show Gideon's Crossing, Williams' television appearance included a regular guest-starring role. He is also known for his commercials for Colt 45, a malt liquor, which began in the mid-1980s; he will reprise his spokesperson role in 2016. Williams dismissed criticism—for the subpoena of the ad campaign,'works every time,' and the target audience—I drink, you drink—was dismissed. "I'd go to a commercial for marijuana if it was legal," says the narrator. Williams went from trailing behind Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in barrels made to "skyrocketing" a year after the 1986 ads went from two million barrels to "skyrocketing" a year after the 1986 ads went to two million barrels in the top spot for malt liquor.

Brady Lloyd starred opposite Diahann Carroll in the 1984–1985 Dynasty era. Williams was paired with actress Marla Gibbs on three situation comedies: The Jeffersons (Gibbs' character, Florence, was a big fan of Williams and sued him on every single occasion because she thought Williams was an imposter); and The Hughleys (Gibbs and Williams played Darryl's parents). In 1992, he portrayed Berry Gordy in The Jacksons: An American Dream. Williams appeared on The Cosby Show, A Different World, as Langston Paige, a grumpy landlord, in a backdoor pilot for his own film in 1993. Williams appeared on Martin Lawrence as himself, giving Martin Lawrence's character and tips on getting back to Gina.

In 1990, Williams made a special guest appearance on In Living Color, a hit sketch comedy film. In an episode of That '70s Show, he played Pastor Dan. His character, Eric Forman (himself a Star Wars enthusiast) and Donna Pinciotti discuss his premarital relationship in this episode, "Baby Don't Do It" (2004). In the episode "Exposé," Williams appeared as himself on the television show "Reality." On short clips on Jimmy Kimmel Live, he also appears on short clips. He was born as a semi-parody of himself. In February 2006, Williams guest appeared in Scrubs' season 5 episode "Her Story II," where he plays Julie's godfather. (Mandy Moore). Even though Turks prefer to be called Billy Dee, he hugs him, calling him "Lando." Williams appeared in Toussaint Dubois for GM: Night Shift in 2007 and 2008. Williams resurfaced as Toussaint on GM, which began in June 2009. In the Adult Swim animated series Titan Maximum, Williams portrayed Admiral Bitchface, the head of the military on Titan. Williams appeared in the animated film The Boondocks, where he portrayed a fictionalized version of himself in the episode "The Story of Lando Freeman" in July 2010.

Williams appeared on USA Network's White Collar in February 2011 as Ford, an old friend of Neal Caffrey's landlady June, played by Diahann Carroll. Williams was the surprise guest at a taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show highlighting Diana Ross in February 2012. After not seeing each other for the first time in 29 years, Ross and Williams were reunited. Williams appeared on NCIS' Season 10 Episode 5 titled "Namesake" in October 2012 as Gibbs' namesake and his father's former best friend, Leroy Jethro Moore. Williams made a cameo appearance as himself on Modern Family's episode 11 "New Year's Eve" on January 9, 2013.

Williams appeared on the 18th season of Dancing with the Stars, a reality show/dancing competition partnered with professional dancer Emma Slater. Due to a back injury to Williams' back, the pair had to pull out of the tournament for the third week.

Williams has appeared at fan conventions, mainly science fiction, for his legendary Lando Calrissian role in the Star Wars franchise over the years. "I love every single moment of it, and I'll have an audience for the remainder of my life," the singer said of his fan interactions.

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Honors and awards

• Primetime Emmy [Nominee] (1972) for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in "Gale Sayers" in Brian's Song (1971)
• Inducted into the Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame in 1984.
• Hollywood Walk of Fame
  • Star on the Walk of Fame (1985) at 1521 Vine Street.
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films
  • Saturn Award [Nominee] (1981) for Best Supporting Actor in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
  • Saturn Award [Nominee] (1984) for Best Supporting Actor in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
• Film Independent Spirit Awards
  • Independent Spirit Award [Nominee] (2001) for Best Supporting Male in The Visit (2000)
• Multicultural Motion Picture Association (Diversity Awards): Circa 2000–2001, Lifetime Achievement Honor
• Black Reel Awards: Nom 2002 Theatrical - Best Supporting Actor for The Visit
• NAACP Image Awards (NAACP)
  • Image Award [Winner] (1972) for Best Actor - Motion Picture in Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
  • Image Award [Winner] (1977) for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture in The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)
  • Image Award [Nominee] (2001) for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture in The Visit (2000)
  • Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions to the arts in 2006.
• Indie Series Awards
  • ISA [Winner] (2010) for Best Performance by a Guest Actor in Diary of a Single Mom (2009)
  • ISA [Nominee] (2011) for Outstanding Supporting Actor in Diary of a Single Mom (2009)
• TV Land Awards
  • TV Land Award [Winner] (2006) for Blockbuster Movie of the Week In Brian's Song (1971)
  • TV Land Award [Nominee] (2003) for Most Memorable Male Guest Star in a Comedy as Himself In The Jeffersons (1975)
• African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA)
  • Special Achievement Award [Winner] (2012)
• Behind the Voice Actors Awards
  • BTVA Feature Film Voice Acting Award [Nominee] (2018) for Best Vocal Ensemble in a Feature Film in The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
• American Black Film Festival
  • (2018) Hollywood Legacy Award