This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more What You Hear
Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. He's had such a long and illustrious career on
stage and film, I'm just wondering if he could fit it all in one
memoir. Billy D Williams joining us now with the debut of his only memoir,
his first memoir, What have We here? Greetings Billy D Williams.
Yeah, I oh, great to have you along. Let's go back to
the beginning of Billy you were I mean, how did a little boy born
in the midst of the Depression in Harlem, New York get into acting?
Well, my mommy, mommy was a beautiful young woman who had great aspirations
and dreams of being a movie star. And she was studied OFT for for
many years, but she was working at the Liceum Theater UH as a an
elevator operator and also a secretary. She became a secretary because she studied UH
to be a secretary. But they were Max Gordon and UH and uh uh
oh, my brain's not working. But anyway, the the UH producers,
these producers and and UH managers of Broadway managers had an office at the Lyceum
Theater and they were doing a production of Kurt Vile Kurt File production. Kurk
Viild was people who don't know who he is, and I'm showing an awful
lot of people don't know who he is. But he was. He wrote
with Grip brick Free Penny Opera and anyway he was. They were doing a
musical uh that was uh, written by h. Courtville and his wife,
Lenya, was playing the one of the central characters in the play, and
he needed a little boy to play the She played the Duchess. It was
all of the story was about ben Venudo Celini, who was like a great
Renaissance sculptor who was a swashbuckling kind of characters. And the character that Lenya
was playing was the Duchess, and they needed a little page boy to be
a page boy to the duchess. And my mommy me had me, and
so they had me come and uh and uh she took me to to audition
and I uh. They had me walk across state one time, walked plus
stayed two times and they said, thankability, we don't need you to walk
across the stage anymore. And I decided that I wanted to do it.
The third time I got became obviously at that strange, little wonderful moment,
I had become smitten by the whole idea of being on stage. Anyway,
I started crying, and uh and I always say I cried. I cried
my way into so time. So that's not it all. And this in
the book, well I imagine it is. And for those who don't know
Lottie Lenya, I think everybody realizes her as Rosa kleb and from Russia with
love, but I don't think they realized just how much of a stage veteran
she was. Oh yeah, well, you know, they all came from
Germany, you know, and they left Germany during those years when hip hop
came along, and uh, either I guess they all either went to England
or they came here to the United States of court Vile and Lenya. I
ended up here because this play was right just right after that, Yeah,
Bull de Bostle. Yeah, and then Three Penny Opera was what where they
got their their worldwide renown, I imagine, right, yeah. Yeah.
Billy D. Williams, his his memoir is what Have We Here? Portraits
of a Life? It is out now. And then, Billy, your
career prospered with your first film, The Last Angry Man. All right,
yes, with Muni. Paul Muni, great Paul Muni, one of the
greatest actors this country's ever produced. He became a mentor to you, did
he not? Yeah? You know Reuni? Uh, Well, that was
my very first movie, and working with I mean it was fortuitous to be.
When I think of my career and how it evolved and the kind of
people who found myself surrounded by, I feel like I was really truly given
a gift and always wondered, although I think I understand why I was specifically
given the gift of working with these people because I had I'm I would consider
myself a relatively open person, and I've led an eclectic life, which also
contributes to the being an open person. I had the opportunity to talk to
people and to relate to people that who had very who had very evolved ideas
about how to approach the art of acting, the art of paintings and things
of that nature. So really working with Beauty was used to have great talks
about if you're an actor, you can play any role you want to play.
You know, you know, don't get yourself. You're admired into this
whole world of of you know, one thing or the other. But if
you are capable, you can do anything you want to do. And that
point of view was something that is resonated and and I've lived with all of
my life in terms of how I put for a character. I mean,
when I played Orlando in Orlando, when I heard when I heard the name,
and even with Olivier when I used to talk to Olivier, but when
I heard the name cal Risian, I thought, wow, that's in our
median name. Yeah, you know, and I thought, wow, no,
let me see what I can do with that. And then of course
when I got the cap that was Aero Flynn's time. So the combination of
the two, you know, it was. I took those two ideas and
try to make something bigger than life, beyond just the question of everybody sitting
around arguing about you know, racial and things of that nature. I mean,
I kind of get bored with all that kind of stuff. I think
that your energy should be used for waste. If you want to disagree with
things, you know, find ways to combat it, find ways to work
around it through it, and you certainly did too, especially at a time
when theater and film were starting to experiment and open their eyes to newer and
different things to do it. You never let your career get bogged down in
that, Billy D Williams. The name of the memoir is what have We
Here? Portraits of a Life. It is out now everywhere you get books,
and thank you for bringing it to us and joining us today, Billy
D Williams. Well, I have a great day. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to
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