People

Billy Dee Williams

Acting · follow into films and chains

Biography

William December "Billy Dee" Williams Jr. (born April 6, 1937) is an American actor, artist, and singer. He is best known as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, first in the early 1980s, 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. He made his film debut in 1959 in The Last Angry Man starring Paul Muni, in which he portrayed a juvenile delinquent. His first big break was in the acclaimed television movie, Brian's Song in which he played Gale Sayers. In 1972 he played Billie Holliday's husband Louis McKay in Motown Productions' Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues. Diana Ross starred in Lady Sings the Blues opposite Williams; Motown paired the two of them again three years later in Mahogany. His work has earned him numerous awards and honors including three NAACP Image Awards, and the NAACP Lifetime Achievement award. He was inducted into the Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame in 1984, and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1985.

Notable films

Where to start

Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.

The Conversation

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

As Lando Calrissian

Batman

As Harvey Dent

The Empire Strikes Back

As Lando Calrissian

Return of the Jedi

As Lando Calrissian

The Lego Movie

As Lando (voice)

The Lego Batman Movie

As Two-Face (voice)

Icons Unearthed: Batman

As Self

Chains

KinoChain journeys

Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.

Browse all chains

The Art of Listening

From the whisper of a surveillance tape to the roar of a wartime beach, these eight films prove that sound is not just heard, it is felt. A chain of masterpiece...

7 films

Love in the Time of Espionage

From Berlin to Buenos Aires, a journey through films where romance and espionage entwine, revealing the human cost of secrets.

7 films

The Architecture of Obsession: Cinema of the Fixated Mind

Eight films in which a character's consuming fixation drives the narrative, examined through the directorial techniques that externalise interiority: subjective...

8 films

Topics