Famous People Named William a to z

William Waldorf Astor was a wealthy descendant of John Jacob Astor who became a New York State senator and a member of the New York State Assembly.

Politician and publisher Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor became a member of Parliament and was the publisher of the London Observer from 1915 to 1945.

William Backhouse Astor was the second son of John Jacob Astor and became the richest man in the U.S. upon his father's death.

William Atherton is an American actor known for playing heavies in films like Ghostbusters and Die Hard.

William Blake was a 19th century writer and artist who is regarded as a seminal figure of the Romantic Age. His writings have influenced countless writers and artists through the ages, and he has been deemed both a major poet and an original thinker.

A leader of the Puritan Separatist movement, William Brewster was one of the pilgrims who traveled aboard the Mayflower to America.

William F. Buckley was a writer and political TV personality who helped make conservative politics popular in the 1950s-1970s.

William S. Burroughs was a Beat Generation writer known for his startling, nontraditional accounts of drug culture, most famously in the book Naked Lunch.

William Clark was half of the famous exploration team Lewis and Clark, who explored and mapped the unknown lands west of the Mississippi River.

William Dodd was an American historian and diplomat who wrote about the antebellum South and the Civil War.

William O. Douglas was a government official who in 1939 became the second youngest Supreme Court justice in U.S. history.

William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning novelist of the American South, who wrote challenging prose and created the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He is known for novels like Sartoris.

William Findley's long political career began after the Revolutionary War. He believed in limiting the power of government in order to protect people's rights.

William Lloyd Garrison was an American journalistic crusader who helped lead the successful abolitionist campaign against slavery in the United States.

British novelist William Golding wrote the critically acclaimed classic Lord of the Flies, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.

William S. Harley was an American entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company.

William Henry Harrison was the ninth president of the United States (1841) and the first to die in office.

William Randolph Hearst is best known for publishing the largest chain of American newspapers in the late 19th century, and particularly for sensational "yellow journalism."

William Holden was an actor who perfected the role of the cynic who acts heroically in spite of his scorn or pessimism.

William Hurt is an Academy Award-winning actor known for his intense dramas and challenging roles in films such as Broadcast News and A History of Violence.

William Inge was a playwright best known for his plays Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize; and Bus Stop.

The writings of psychologist and philosopher William James had a major impact on the way we look at the mind, the body, and the world.

William Joyce is best known for his involvement in the British Fascist Party during World War II and immigrating to Nazi Germany.

William Kempe was one of the most famous clowns of the Elizabethan era and originated some of Shakespeare's comedic characters.

William Kidd is one of the most famous pirates in history, remembered for his execution for piracy on the Indian Ocean.

William Lyon Mackenzie was a journalist and political agitator who led an unsuccessful revolt against the Canadian government in 1837.

William H. Macy is an actor known for his diverse characters in films such as Fargo, Boogie Nights and Air Force One.

William Manchester was a historian who notably wrote about American president John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill.

Film actor. William Marshall was an actor best known for his lead role in the legendary blaxploitation film Blacula.

Billy the Kid is best known for his time as a thief and gunfighter, constantly on the run from law enforcement.

William McGuffey was a 19th-century educator remembered chiefly for his series of elementary readers.

William McKinley is best known for being president when the United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

William S. Paley was a businessman who started what would become the CBS television network.

William Sydney Porter was a prolific short story writer whose work appeared under the name O. Henry.

Prince William is the eldest son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles of Wales and is next in line for the British throne after his father.

William Rehnquist was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon in 1971. He was elevated to the post of chief justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He remained chief justice until his death in 2005.

William Seward was a New York governor and U.S. senator before serving as secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

William Shakespeare, often called the English national poet, is widely considered the greatest dramatist of all time.

Pop icon William Shatner is best known for his distinctive voice and his roles on Star Trek and Boston Legal.

William Tecumseh Sherman was a U.S. Civil War Union Army leader known for "Sherman's March," in which he and his troops laid waste to the South.

William Shockley was an engineer and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for his development of the transistor.

William Thomas Stead was a writer of journalistic pieces and ghost stories whose life came to an end on the Titanic.

William Grant Still was a conductor and composer and the first African-American to conduct a professional symphony orchestra in the U.S.

Novelist William Styron won a Pulitzer Prize for The Confessions of Nat Turner and wrote Sophie’s Choice, the basis of an Academy Award-winning film.

William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, fulfilled a lifelong dream when he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court, becoming the only person to have served as both a U.S. chief justice and president.

William Monroe Trotter was a Harvard-educated journalist and activist who championed equal rights for African Americans.

The son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, William Henry Vanderbilt was a railroad magnate who doubled his family's fortune.

DeWitt Wallace was an American publisher and, with his wife, founder of Reader's Digest magazine. The couple supported numerous philanthropic causes.

William Wallace, a Scottish knight, became a central early figure in the wars to secure Scottish freedom from the English, becoming one of his country's greatest national heroes.

William Westmoreland was a U.S. Army general who made a name for himself as commander of American troops in Vietnam.

William I is best known for ruling Prussia as regent, and king, and later as German emperor.

William Butler Yeats was one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.