On April 6, 1937, Billy Dee Williams was born in New York City, beginning a career that would make him one of the most recognizable Black actors in American film and television.
Raised in Harlem, Williams grew up in a family that valued the arts. His mother worked at the Lyceum Theatre, and at age seven, he made his Broadway debut in “The Firebrand of Florence.” Although he later studied painting at New York’s High School of Music and Art and earned a scholarship to the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Williams turned to acting to help pay for his supplies and tuition.
After years of small parts onstage and on television, Williams made his film debut in 1959 in “The Last Angry Man.” His breakthrough came in 1971 when he starred opposite James Caan in the television movie “Brian’s Song.” Williams played Chicago Bears star Gale Sayers and earned an Emmy nomination. He later called it the role of which he was most proud because it challenged racial barriers and presented a close friendship between a Black man and a white man at a time when such portrayals were rare.
Williams became one of the biggest Black movie stars of the 1970s with films including “Lady Sings the Blues,” “Mahogany” and “Scott Joplin.” Critics often praised his calm style and screen presence. The New York Times once called him “the Black Clark Gable.”
His most famous role arrived in 1980 when he was cast as Lando Calrissian in “The Empire Strikes Back.” Williams became the first Black actor to play a major role in the “Star Wars” franchise. He returned as Lando in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi” and, nearly four decades later, in 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
Williams also appeared in 1989’s “Batman” as Harvey Dent and later voiced the character in “The Lego Batman Movie.” Over six decades, he built a career that included more than 100 film and television roles, along with a successful second life as a painter whose work has been shown worldwide.
Williams has received three NAACP Image Awards, the NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and induction into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
