List of Famous people named William

William Brockenbrough Taylor Jr. is an American diplomat, government official, and former soldier, who served as the 6th United States ambassador to Ukraine 2006 to 2009 and as acting ambassador to Ukraine from June 2019 to January 2020.

William McChord Hurt is an American actor. He studied at the Juilliard School and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut in 1980 as a troubled scientist in Ken Russell's science-fiction feature Altered States, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year. In 1981 he played a leading role, as a lawyer who succumbs to the temptations of Kathleen Turner, in the neo-noir Body Heat. He played another leading role, as Arkady Renko, in Gorky Park (1983).

William Henry Gates II, better known as Bill Gates Sr., was an American attorney, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was the founder of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, and also served as president of both the Seattle King County and Washington State Bar associations. He was the father of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

William Leonard Pickard is one of two people convicted in the largest lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) manufacturing case in history. In 2000, while moving their LSD laboratory across Kansas, Pickard and Clyde Apperson were pulled over while driving a Ryder rental truck and a follow car. The laboratory had been stored near a renovated Atlas-E missile silo near Wamego, Kansas. Gordon Todd Skinner, one of the men intimately involved in the case but not charged due to his cooperation, owned the property where the laboratory equipment was stored.

William Eugene Bufalino was an American attorney who represented the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1947 until 1971. He retired in 1982. Bufalino worked closely with Jimmy Hoffa until 1971. Bufalino died on May 12, 1990.

William Etty was an English artist best known for his history paintings containing nude figures. He was the first significant British painter of nudes and still lifes. Born in York, he left school at the age of 12 to become an apprentice printer in Hull. He completed his apprenticeship seven years later and moved to London, where in 1807 he joined the Royal Academy Schools. There he studied under Thomas Lawrence and trained by copying works by other artists. Etty earned respect at the Royal Academy of Arts for his ability to paint realistic flesh tones, but had little commercial or critical success in his first few years in London.

William Patrick Roache is an English actor. He is best known for playing Ken Barlow on the long-running soap opera Coronation Street since it was first broadcast on 9 December 1960. He is listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest-serving male television star in a continuous role.

William Holden was an American actor who was also known professionally as Bill Holden. He was one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Oscar for Best Actor for the film Stalag 17 (1953), and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for the television film The Blue Knight (1973). Holden starred in some of Hollywood's most popular and critically acclaimed films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), Picnic (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Wild Bunch (1969) and Network (1976). He was named one of the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" six times, and appeared as 25th on the American Film Institute's list of 25 greatest male stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

William Laws Calley Jr. is an American war criminal and a former United States Army officer convicted by court-martial for the premeditated killings of 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the Mỹ Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Calley was released to house arrest under orders by President Richard Nixon three days after his conviction. A new trial was ordered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit but that ruling was overturned by the United States Supreme Court. Calley served three years of house arrest for the murders. Public opinion about Calley was divided.

William Moulton Marston, also known by the pen name Charles Moulton, was an American psychologist who, with his wife Elizabeth Holloway, invented an early prototype of the lie detector. He was also known as a self-help author and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman.