William December "Billy Dee" Williams Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor and novelist. He is best known as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, first in the early 1980s for The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, and nearly forty years later in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), marking one of the longest intervals between onscreen portrayals of a character by the same actor in American film history.
Williams was born in New York City, and raised with his twin sister Loretta in Harlem. In 1945, he made his Broadway theatre debut at age seven in The Firebrand of Florence. He later graduated from The High School of Music & Art, then won a painting scholarship to the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, where he won a Hallgarten Prize for painting in the mid-1950s. To fund his art supplies he returned to acting, including stage, films, and television. He continued painting; his work has since been shown in galleries and collections worldwide.
Subject ID: 122861
MoreWilliam December "Billy Dee" Williams Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor and novelist. He is best known as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, first in the early 1980s for The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, and nearly forty years later in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), marking one of the longest intervals between onscreen portrayals of a character by the same actor in American film history.
Williams was born in New York City, and raised with his twin sister Loretta in Harlem. In 1945, he made his Broadway theatre debut at age seven in The Firebrand of Florence. He later graduated from The High School of Music & Art, then won a painting scholarship to the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, where he won a Hallgarten Prize for painting in the mid-1950s. To fund his art supplies he returned to acting, including stage, films, and television. He continued painting; his work has since been shown in galleries and collections worldwide.
Subject ID: 122861
Subject ID: 122861