The MARVELOUS Life of Billy Dee Williams

THE LEGENDARY ACTOR REFLECTS ON HIS INCREDIBLE JOURNEY THROUGH HOLLYWOOD AND BEYOND

- JANINE RUBENSTEIN

Billy Dee Williams can’t figure out how his life has worked out so well. “I’m always chuckling about myself. I think much of my life is dictated by chance and happenstance,” says the actor, 86. “When I was a kid, I read Catcher in the Rye, and with the main character I said, ‘That’s me, just kind of bumbling through everything.’ There were moments when I wanted to go right, and something would say, ‘No Billy, go left.’ I guess I learned to trust my instincts.”

Those instincts led him on a fantastic journey, from growing up as a child of the Harlem Renaissance to carving out a decades-long Hollywood career. Williams recently decided it’s time to tell his own Holden Caulfield-esque story in his new memoir What Have We Here?, named after a quote taken from one of his most iconic roles, as the endearing, beguiling Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise (see sidebar). “When I got the cape [Lando wears in the film], I said, ‘This is fantastic!’” recalls Williams. “That’s the kind of stuff I like to fool around with. I don’t take myself too seriously.”