Actor Billy Dee Williams will tell the story of his life in a new memoir, People magazine reports.
Knopf will publish the actor’s What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life next year. The press says that in the book, Williams “recalls his remarkable life of nearly eight decades…unchecked by the racism and typecasting so rife in the mostly all-white industry in which he triumphed.”
Williams was raised in Harlem and was 7 when he made his Broadway debut in The Firebrand of Florence. He became a national star with the 1971 television film Brian’s Song, in which he played Gale Sayers, the Chicago Bears halfback.
He is best known for playing Lando Calrissian, the smooth-talking city administrator in the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker. The title of his memoir comes from one of Lando’s most memorable lines in The Empire Strikes Back, which he says when first meeting Princess Leia.
Williams announced his memoir on Instagram, writing, “Coming in February 2024, I will be sharing my life’s story—from Harlem to Star Wars and beyond—on all that has sustained and carried me through a lifetime of dreams and adventure.”
What Have We Here? is slated for publication on Feb. 13, 2024.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
