Billy Golfus is an activist for disabled people in the United States. He is renowned for his documentary When Billy Broke His Head... and Other Tales of Wonder which was released in 1994. It won numerous awards including an Emmy nomination and a Sundance Festival award. Although he has had plans to make more films, none have yet surfaced.
Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, filmmaker and musician. He had his first break when he co-wrote and starred in the 1992 thriller One False Move, and received international attention after writing, directing, and starring in the independent drama film Sling Blade (1996), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He appeared in several major film roles in the 1990s following Sling Blade, including Oliver Stone's neo-noir U Turn (1997), political drama Primary Colors (1998), science fiction disaster film Armageddon (1998), the highest-grossing film of that year, and the crime drama A Simple Plan (1998), which earned him his third Oscar nomination.
William Edward Crystal is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s for television roles as Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and as a cast member and frequent host of Saturday Night Live. Crystal then became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in Running Scared (1986), The Princess Bride (1987), Throw Momma from the Train (1987), Memories of Me (1988), When Harry Met Sally... (1989), City Slickers (1991), Mr. Saturday Night (1992), Analyze This (1999), and Parental Guidance (2012). He provided the voice of Mike Wazowski in the Monsters, Inc. franchise. He also starred on the Broadway stage in 700 Sundays in 2004 and again in 2014 and in Mr. Saturday Night in 2022.
William Martin Joel is an American singer, pianist and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released 12 pop and rock studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album of classical compositions in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the seventh-best-selling recording artist and the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 160 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the United States.
Billy Wilder was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director eight times, winning twice, and for a screenplay Academy Award 13 times, winning three times.
Midnight Express is a 1978 prison drama film directed by Alan Parker and adapted by Oliver Stone from Billy Hayes's 1977 memoir of the same name. The film centers on Hayes, a young American student, who is sent to a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of the country. The film's title is prison slang for his escape attempt. The cast also features Irene Miracle, John Hurt, Bo Hopkins, Paul L. Smith and Randy Quaid.
Billy Elliot is a 2000 British coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Lee Hall. Set in County Durham in North East England during the 1984–1985 miners' strike, the film is about a working-class boy who discovers a passion for ballet. His father objects, based on negative stereotypes of male ballet dancers. The film stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, Gary Lewis as his father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher.
Sir William Connolly is a Scottish actor, retired comedian, artist, writer, musician, and television presenter. He is sometimes known, especially in his homeland, by the Scots nickname the Big Yin. Known for his idiosyncratic and often improvised observational comedy, frequently including strong language, Connolly has topped many UK polls as the greatest stand-up comedian of all time. In 2022 he received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
William Everett Preston was an American keyboardist, singer and songwriter whose work encompassed R&B, rock, soul, funk, and gospel. Preston was a top session keyboardist in the 1960s, during which he backed artists such as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, the Everly Brothers, Reverend James Cleveland, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He gained attention as a solo artist with hit singles such as "That's the Way God Planned It", the Grammy-winning "Outa-Space", "Will It Go Round in Circles", "Space Race", "Nothing from Nothing", and "With You I'm Born Again". Additionally, Preston co-wrote "You Are So Beautiful", which became a #5 hit for Joe Cocker.
William December Williams Jr. is an American actor. He appeared as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, first in the early 1980s for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), and thirty-six 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.
William Gaither Crudup is an American actor. He is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning once for his performance in Tom Stoppard's play The Coast of Utopia in 2007. He has starred in numerous high-profile films, including Without Limits (1998), Almost Famous (2000), Big Fish (2003), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Watchmen (2009), Public Enemies (2009), The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015), Jackie (2016), and Alien: Covenant (2017), in both lead and supporting roles. He has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his performance in Jesus' Son, and received two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations as part of an ensemble cast for Almost Famous and Spotlight, winning for the latter.
William Franklin Graham Jr. was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and according to a biographer, was "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.
William Wendell Gilman III is an American singer. Starting as a young country artist, he is known for his debut single "One Voice", a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and a top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 2000. He has released five albums, including three for Epic Nashville. In 2016, Gilman auditioned for season 11 of the US edition of The Voice and competed as part of Team Adam Levine, finishing as runner-up for the season.
William John Donovan Jr. is an American professional basketball coach and former player. He has served as head coach of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) since September 2020 after previously coaching the Oklahoma City Thunder from 2015 to 2020. Before moving to the NBA, he served as the head basketball coach at the University of Florida from 1996 to 2015, and led his Florida Gator teams to back-to-back NCAA championships in 2006 and 2007, as well as an NCAA championship appearance in 2000.
Ian Howes Maxtone-Graham is an American television writer and producer. He has formerly written for Saturday Night Live (1992–1995) and The Simpsons (1995–2012), as well as serving as a co-executive producer and consulting producer for the latter.
Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1972 American comedy-drama military science fiction film directed by George Roy Hill and produced by Paul Monash, from a screenplay by Stephen Geller, based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. The film stars Michael Sacks as Billy Pilgrim, who is unstuck in time and has no control over where he is going next. It also stars Ron Leibman as Paul Lazzaro and Valerie Perrine as Montana Wildhack.
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is an American animated television series created by Maxwell Atoms for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. It follows Billy, an extremely dimwitted, happy-go-lucky boy, and Mandy, a cynical, remorseless girl, who, after winning a limbo game to save Billy's pet hamster, gain Grim, the mighty Grim Reaper, as their "best friend forever". Grim, who is reluctant to serve the two children, has access to supernatural items, spells, and other abilities that often lead Billy and Mandy to interact with otherworldly environments, characters, or situations.
Kunwar "Billy" Arjan Singh was an Indian hunter turned conservationist and author. He was the first who tried to reintroduce tigers and leopards from captivity into the wild.
William Ellis Porter II is an American actor, singer, writer and director. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, and he achieved fame performing on Broadway before starting a solo career as a singer and actor.
William Michael Albert Broad, known professionally as Billy Idol, is a British-American singer, songwriter, and musician. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as the lead singer of the group Generation X. Subsequently, he embarked on a solo career which led to international recognition and made Idol a lead artist during the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" in the United States. The name "Billy Idol" was inspired by a schoolteacher's description of him as "idle".
Billy Eichner is an American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter. He is the star, executive producer, and creator of Funny Or Die's Billy on the Street, a comedy game show that aired on truTV. The show earned Eichner a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host in 2013. He is also known for playing Craig Middlebrooks on the sitcom Parks and Recreation, Mr. Ambrose the Librarian on the animated TV series Bob's Burgers, and Timon in the 2019 remake of The Lion King.