List of Famous people named William
William Alexander Morgan
William Alexander Morgan was a United States citizen who fought in the Cuban Revolution, leading a band of rebels that drove the Cuban army from key positions in the central mountains as part of Second National Front of Escambray, thereby helping to pave the way for Fidel Castro's forces to secure victory. Morgan was one of about two dozen U.S. citizens to fight in the revolution and one of only three foreign nationals to hold the rank of comandante in the rebel forces. He turned against Castro after the revolution when Castro began to show Communist leanings, and was one of the leaders of the CIA supplied Escambray rebellion.
William Jefferson Blythe, Jr.
William Jefferson Blythe Jr. was an Arkansas salesman of heavy equipment and the biological father of Bill Clinton. Blythe died three months before his son was born.
William F. Raynolds
William Franklin Raynolds was an American explorer, engineer and U.S. army officer who served in the Mexican–American War and American Civil War. He is best known for leading the 1859–60 Raynolds Expedition while serving as a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers.
William McKenzie, Baron McKenzie of Luton
William David McKenzie, Baron McKenzie of Luton was a British Labour politician. Until the 2010 general election, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Communities and Local Government. He was also a partner at accounting firm Price Waterhouse which became PricewaterhouseCoopers following a 1998 merger.
William A. Marovitz
William A. Marovitz is an American lawyer and politician who was involved in real estate in Chicago and was married to Christie Hefner from 1995 to 2013.
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. What he called his prophetic works were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself".
William de la Pole
Sir William de la Pole, was an English nobleman, and Knight of Wingfield Castle in Wingfield, Suffolk. He was the son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk (1442–1492) and Elizabeth Plantagenet (1444–1504).Through his mother he was clearly in the line of succession to the English Crown, with ultimately disastrous consequences for himself.
William B. Davis
William Bruce Davis is a Canadian actor and director, best known for his role as the Cigarette Smoking Man on The X-Files. Besides appearing in many TV programs and movies, Davis founded his own acting school, the William Davis Centre for Actors Study. In his personal life, Davis is an avid water-skier, lectures on skepticism at events such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's CSICon, and advocates for action on climate change. In 2011 Davis published his memoir, Where There's Smoke ... The Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man.
William Henry Vanderbilt
William Henry "Billy" Vanderbilt was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the eldest son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, an heir to his fortune and a prominent member of the Vanderbilt family. Vanderbilt became the richest American after he took over his father's fortune in 1877 until his own death in 1885, passing on a substantial part of the fortune to his wife and children, particularly to his sons Cornelius II and William. He inherited nearly $100 million from his father. The fortune had doubled when he died less than nine years later.
William Kemmler
William Francis Kemmler was an American peddler, alcoholic, and murderer, who in 1890 became the first person in the world to be executed by electric chair. He was convicted of murdering Matilda "Tillie" Ziegler, his common-law wife, two years earlier. Although electrocution had previously been successfully used to kill a horse, Kemmler's execution did not go smoothly.