General articles: Arts and culture
124,020 articles
William Hickey (actor)
William Hickey, also known as William Edward Hickey, was an American character actor and acting teacher, Oscar-nominated as the Mafia don in Prizzi's Honor (1985).
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (1697–1764), London-born painter and engraver, pioneer of British satirical print series such as A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress, and Marriage A-la-Mode, and namesake of the 1735 Engravers' Act.
William Holden
William Holden (William Franklin Beedle Jr., 1918–1981), American actor; Oscar winner for Stalag 17, star of Sunset Boulevard, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Wild Bunch, and Network; also a Kenya wildlife conservationist.
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), English painter and founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with Millais and Rossetti; known for The Light of the World, The Scapegoat, and Holy Land travels.
William Hopper
William Hopper (William DeWolf Hopper Jr., 1915-1970), American actor, son of DeWolf Hopper and Hedda Hopper; played Paul Drake in 271 episodes of CBS's Perry Mason (1957-1966), Navy frogman and Bronze Star recipient.
William Hung (孔庆翔)
William Hung (孔慶翔), born 1983, in Hong Kong, is the American Idol season 3 reject whose 2004 "She Bangs" audition went viral; he recorded three albums, later became an LA County crime analyst and motivational speaker.
William Hurt
William Hurt (1950-2022), American actor, Oscar winner for Kiss of the Spider Woman; starred in Body Heat, Broadcast News, A History of Violence, and five Marvel films as Thaddeus Ross.
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (Guilhem de Peitieus) was a French nobleman and the earliest troubadour whose work survives, with eleven songs written in Occitan.
William Jackson Harper
William Jackson Harper (born 1980, Dallas) is an American actor known as Chidi Anagonye on NBC's The Good Place, an Emmy 2020 nominee, also of The Underground Railroad, The Resort, Midsommar, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Tony-nominated Uncle Vanya.
William Katt
William Katt (William Theodore Katt), American actor born 1951 in Los Angeles, son of Barbara Hale and Bill Williams; star of The Greatest American Hero (1981–83) and Tommy Ross in Carrie (1976).
William Kennedy (author)
William Joseph Kennedy (born 1928) is an American novelist and journalist from Albany, New York, creator of the eight-novel Albany Cycle; his Ironweed (1983) won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and he founded the New York State Writers Institute.
William Kennedy Dickson
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (1860-1935), British-born-in-France inventor, created the Kinetograph camera, Kinetoscope, 35 mm film standard, and Black Maria studio under Edison, then co-founded American Mutoscope and Biograph.
William Kent
William Kent (1685–1748) was an English architect and designer who shaped the early Georgian era by reviving Palladianism and applying a distinctive natural style to his architecture and landscape designs.
William Kentridge
William Kentridge (born 1955, Johannesburg) is a South African artist, film-maker, and opera director known for the Drawings for Projection charcoal animations, The Nose at the Met, and the Centre for the Less Good Idea.
William Langland
William Langland (c. 1332 – c. 1400) is the name given to the presumed author of Piers Plowman, a Middle English allegorical dream vision in unrhymed alliterative verse.
William Lee Golden
William Lee Golden (born 1939, Brewton, Alabama) is the baritone singer of the Oak Ridge Boys, joined 1965, left 1987, rejoined 1995; also a painter, photographer, and author of Behind the Beard.
William Levy (actor)
William Levy (William Gutiérrez Levy, born 1980, Cojímar, Cuba) is a Cuban-American actor and producer, telenovela star of Cuidado con el ángel and Café con aroma de mujer, later Hollywood films and ViX/Secuoya streaming productions.
William Lipton
William Lipton (born 2003) is an American actor and musician, known as Cameron Webber on General Hospital (2018-2023) and as Charlie Cooper, lead singer-guitarist of the real band The Runarounds, in the 2025 Prime Video series of the same name.
William Lucking
William Lucking (Frederick William Lucking Jr., 1941–2021), American character actor from Vicksburg, Michigan; played Piney Winston on Sons of Anarchy and Colonel Lynch on The A-Team; over 150 screen credits; co-founded Santa Paula Theater Center.
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), English novelist born in Calcutta, author of Vanity Fair (1848), Barry Lyndon, and Henry Esmond; Dickens's great Victorian rival, first editor of Cornhill Magazine, died of a stroke in London.
William Mapother
William Mapother (William Reibert Mapother Jr., born 1965, Louisville) is an American character actor, Ethan Rom on Lost, Richard Strout in In the Bedroom, John Burroughs in Another Earth, and Tom Cruise's first cousin.
William Marshall (actor)
William Marshall (1924–2003), American actor, classically trained Othello, star of Blacula (1972) and Scream Blacula Scream; also Star Trek's Dr. Daystrom and Pee-wee's Playhouse King of Cartoons. Distinct from a 1995-born British horror actor and a 1917-born bandleader.
William Maxwell (editor)
William Maxwell, born William Keepers Maxwell Jr. (1908–2000), was an American novelist and longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker, where he edited Cheever, Welty, and Salinger.
William McGonagall
William Topaz McGonagall (1825–1902), Dundee weaver turned poet, is regarded as the worst poet in English-language history; famed for "The Tay Bridge Disaster," self-styled Knight of the White Elephant, still in print.
William McIlvanney
William McIlvanney (1936–2015), Scottish novelist and poet from Kilmarnock, author of the Laidlaw trilogy and Docherty; called the godfather of tartan noir, Whitbread and CWA Silver Dagger winner.
William McNamara
William McNamara, full name William West McNamara, is an American actor born in 1965, known for Stealing Home (1988) and the serial killer Peter Foley in Copycat (1995).
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) was an American painter and one of the era's most influential art teachers, known for portraits, still lifes, and Impressionist landscapes of urban parks and the Shinnecock Hills.
William Michael Harnett
William Michael Harnett (1848–1892) was an Irish-born American painter who led American trompe l'oeil still-life painting, depicting pipes, books, and currency with such realism that viewers felt they could grasp them.
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti (1829–1919), English art critic, literary editor, and Inland Revenue civil servant; founder member and secretary of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, editor of The Germ, and editor-biographer of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti.
William Morris
William Morris (1834–1896), English designer, writer, and socialist, led the Arts and Crafts movement, founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861, relaunched as Morris & Co. 1875) and the Kelmscott Press (1891), famed for 'useful or beautiful' design ideals.