Billy Williams

Camera operator

June 3, 1929 (95 years)

† May 20, 2025

Walthamstow, London, England, UK

Biography

William Desmond Williams (3 June 1929 – 20 May 2025) was a British cinematographer. Williams was responsible for shooting a number of films, including Women in Love (1969), On Golden Pond (1981) and Gandhi (1982), for which he won an Academy Award.

Filmography

7.6

Gandhi

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

5.3

Saturn 3

In the future, Earth is overcrowded and the population relies on distant bases to be fed. In the Saturn 3 station, Major Adam and the scientist Alex, who is also his lover and has never been on Earth, have been researching hydroponics for three years in the base alone with their dog Sally. Captain Benson arrives Saturn 3 with Hector, incapable to controlling his emotions he transfers his homicidal tendency and insanity to Hector. Now Major Adam and Alex are trapped in the station with a dangerous psychopath robot.

6.2

The Manhattan Project

A gifted high school student steals plutonium from the secret nuclear weapons facility in his home town in order to construct his own nuclear bomb, win a national science fair, and expose the government's secrets.

7.3

On Golden Pond

For Norman and Ethel Thayer, this summer on golden pond is filled with conflict and resolution. When their daughter Chelsea arrives, the family is forced to renew the bonds of love and overcome the generational friction that has existed for years.

6.6

Suspect

When a Supreme Court judge commits suicide and his secretary is found murdered, all fingers point to Carl Anderson, a homeless veteran who's deaf and mute. But when public defender Kathleen Riley is assigned to his case, she begins to believe that Anderson may actually be innocent. Juror Eddie Sanger, a Washington lobbyist, agrees, and together the pair begins their own investigation of events.

6.5

The Wind and the Lion

At the beginning of the 20th century an American woman is abducted in Morocco by Berbers, and the attempts to free her range from diplomatic pressure to military intervention.

6.6

Women in Love

Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920s English coal-mining community, free-spirited sisters Gudrun and Ursula explore erotic love with a wealthy playboy and a philosophical educator, with cataclysmic results for all four.

5.6

Billion Dollar Brain

A former British spy stumbles into in a plot to overthrow Communism with the help of a supercomputer. But who is working for whom?

7.7

The Glass Menagerie

An aging Southern Belle complicates life for her ambitious son and crippled daughter because of her own warped views of what life should be.

6.0

Voyage of the Damned

A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

4.6

Monsignor

The vows of an ambitious young American priest are tested during World War II. Not only does Father John Flaherty get involved with the black market to raise money for the Vatican, he also falls in love with a young French nun.

5.7

The Survivors

Having both lost their jobs, two strangers become unlikely friends after a run in with a would be robber, who is actually a hitman with a grudge against the two.

5.6

The Magus

A teacher on a Greek island becomes involved in bizarre mind-games with the island's magus (magician) and a beautiful young woman.

7.1

The Silent Partner

Toronto, Canada. A few days before Christmas, Miles Cullen, a bored teller working at a bank branch located in a shopping mall, accidentally learns that the place is about to be robbed when he finds a disconcerting note on one of the counters.

6.3

Night Watch

A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the abandoned house next door.

6.9

Kid Blue

Bickford Waner, an apparently naive young man from Fort Worth, arrives in the tiny Texas town of Dime Box and takes on a variety of menial jobs. He's befriended by Reese Ford and his wife Molly, but before long Molly has seduced Bickford. Only with the arrival of Bickford's former girlfriend Janet Conforto is it revealed that Bickford is actually the notorious train robber Kid Blue. Humiliated by a scandal arising from his affair with his friend's wife, Bickford gives up on going straight and plots a crime.

5.8

Stella

Barmaid Stella Claire and blueblood Stephen Dallas have very little in common -- except they've fallen in love. When their relationship fails, Stella decides to raise the child they had, Jenny, alone. But Jenny and Stella are far from the perfect mother-daughter pair.

5.6

The Rainbow

Born to a rich landowner in the waning days of the Victorian era, Ursula Brangwen grows into a beautiful young woman full of imagination and ambition. The free-spirited Ursula begins to feel trapped by her prim surroundings, but her life changes when she has an erotic experience with Winifred, a bisexual teacher. From then on, Ursula puts all of her passion and creativity into the pursuit of sexual fulfillment. But her insatiable quest becomes a source of anguish.

5.3

Eagle's Wing

Two men, an aging Native American and a ne'er-do-well trapper from North America, race to claim the stallion Eagle's Wing in antebellum Mexico, meeting marauded stagecoach travelers and garrisoned Mexicans along the way.

5.7

Zee and Co.

The venomous and amoral wife of a wealthy architect tries, any way she can, to break up the blossoming romance between her husband and his new mistress; a good-natured young widow who holds a dark past.