CAM I AM

William Lipton Is A Star On The Rise In And Out Of Daytime.

- Mara Levinsky

The oldest child of two parents with their own passion for the arts (Dad is a wiz on the bass guitar; Mom was an actress in her native Sweden), 17-year-old William Lipton’s own entry into the world of performing was far from auspicious: His folks enrolled him in the School of Rock program in San Francisco’s Bay Area, which he still calls home, shortly after his sixth birthday — but, he recalls, “At first, I was extremely shy. I couldn’t even show up to my first performance!”

In time, though, his confidence grew. “As each show went on, I started really enjoying the feeling of performing in front of people and with my friends,” Lipton explains. “That’s how I got the bug for it.” His focus was on singing and, as he got older, songwriting (“The first original I wrote when I was 9 was called ‘Groundhog Day’ and it was inspired by watching the movie”), but his repertoire expanded to include acting, thanks to his pragmatic mother. “She was a little worried that when puberty came, I would not be able to continue singing, and that would be crushing because she knew how much I loved to perform. For many years, she’d been begging me to try acting.”

Eventually, he did, and when he tried out for a local production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, he was cast in the lead role. “At the audition, they were asking, ‘So, what role would you like?’ And I said, ‘I’d be happy just to be in the show.’ When they gave me Charlie Brown, I was totally over the moon.”