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Should Billy Dee Williams have been a bigger movie star than he ultimately became to be?

posted 5 years ago by TMC-4 (20495)
27 replies | jump to latest

It would be naive to not suggest that racism didn't likely play some part in him not getting more shots as a studio leading man. To give you some better context:

https://www.datalounge.com/thread/22830030-actors-who-got-big-breaks-but-blew-them

He followed up Brian's Song and Lady Sings the Blues with cop and action films, then into oblivion. Star Wars comeback. He could have been a leading man, and don't give me that Hollywood racism spin, it was the 1970s and I was there.

Let's not even discuss how Miss Ross squandered her movie career.

—Anonymous
reply 376 01/05/2019

Billy Dee Williams was also in Batman and I think him being cast as Harvey Dent pissed some people off. He also did Dynasty for a while.

—Anonymous
reply 380 01/05/2019

[R376], I will give you the Hollywood racism spin as unrequested.

What other black male actors were getting lead roles in major studio releases in the eighties?

Billy Dee Williams wasn’t getting roles because he was black. Studios were giving Burt Reynolds one shot after another, bomb after bomb. BDW ended the decade and his period of leading man potential playing a minor role in Batman, and even that threw people into a rage.

—Eldergay, also “there”
reply 387 01/05/2019

[–] Ace_Spade (9661) 5 years ago

I kinda pine for the lost third Tim Burton Batman movie where Billy Dee Williams could have played Two-Face.

[–] Threadkiller (3090) 5 years ago

Sure there as always been an element of anti black racism that limited the opportunities for black people in Hollyweird and certainly more so back then than is the case now. Honestly at that time Billy Dee had the talent and the charisma to be a leading man but the opportunities just weren't there for 99 percent of black actors in those days so it could be argued that he was lucky that he got something as big as Star Wars. He did go on to star along Stallone in Nighthawks and played Harvey Dent in the 1989 Batman film.

It wasn't until Eddie Murphy broke out big in the 80s as the first black true movie star, being a major box office draw for mainstream (white) and black audiences.

[–] Kowalski (79178) 5 years ago

NOPE