Profile via TMDB · Courtesy of TMDB
Billy Porter
Sign in to saveAlso known as William Ellis Porter II, William Porter
American singer and actor
OverviewAI-generated
Billy Porter is an American singer and actor born in Pittsburgh in 1969. He is educated at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California, Los Angeles. His professional career began in 1991. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and speaks English.
Porter has received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and a Tony Award for Best Musical. He is gay and has type 2 diabetes and an HIV infection.
He is the author of works including *Adventure Mantra* and *Unprotected*. His music is associated with soul, easy listening, queer, pop, and musical genres.
Synthesized by Vinony from 37 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Works
- 2
Top works
- Adventure Mantra
- Unprotected
via Open Library + Wikidata
Film & TV
Acting · Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
William Ellis Porter II (born September 21, 1969) is an American actor and singer. Porter gained notice performing on Broadway before starting a solo career as a singer and actor. For his role as Lola in Kinky Boots, Porter won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor in a…
Known for
- The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping — Magno Stift2026
- Billy Preston: That's the Way God Planned It — Self2026
- Christmas Karma — The Ghost of Christmas Present2025
- I Was Born This Way — Self2025
- My Happy Place — Self2025
- Eric André Live Near Broadway — Self2024
- Disco's Revenge2024
- Live from the Other Side with Tyler Henry — Self2024
- 80 for Brady — Gugu2023
- Little Richard: I Am Everything — Self2023
via TMDB
Music · MusicBrainz
- Type
- Person
- Gender
- Male
- Country
- United States
- Active from
- 1969
Discography
via MusicBrainz · CC0
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 69,971
- Total plays
- 531,293
Tags
Billy Porter (born September 21, 1969 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a Broadway performer and pop vocalist. He graduated from the Musical Theatre Program at Anderson High School's School of Drama and achieved fame performing on Broadway before going off on a solo career as a singer. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts with a B.F.A in Drama. He is probably best known for his portrayal of the Teen Angel in the 1994 revival of Grease!. <a href="https://www.last.fm/m
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship
· 1995 · cited 10,469x
- The Competitive Advantage of Nations
· 1990 · cited 10,422x
- NIA‐AA Research Framework: Toward a biological definition of Alzheimer's disease
· 2018 · cited 9,648x
- GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
· 2017 · cited 8,264x
- Macromolecular structure determination using X-rays, neutrons and electrons: recent developments in
<i>Phenix</i>
· 2019 · cited 7,478x
via Crossref · CC0
Key facts
- Born
- William Ellis Porter II , ( 1969-09-21 ) September 21, 1969 (age 56) , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, U.S.
- Education
- Carnegie Mellon University ( BFA ) University of California, Los Angeles ( GrDip )
- Occupations
- Actor singer writer
- Years active
- 1992–present
- Spouse
- Adam Smith ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 2017 ; separated</span>"}]]}'>sep. 2023 )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Billy
- Family name
- Porter
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Pittsburgh
- Occupation
- director
- Educated at
- University of California, Los Angeles
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Native language
- English language
- Instrument
- voice
- Official website
- billyporter.com
- Image
- Billy Porter Gershwin Prize 2024 (cropped).jpg
Show 9 more facts
- date of birth
- 1969-09-21
- sexual orientation
- gay
- start of work period
- 1991-00-00
- Commons category
- Billy Porter
- name in native language
- Billy Porter
- social media followers
- 109000
- medical condition
- HIV infection
- writing language
- English language
- member of
- SAG-AFTRA
Sources (11)
via Wikidata · CC0
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
William Ellis Porter II (born September 21, 1969) is an American singer, actor, writer, director and businessperson. He gained notice performing on Broadway before starting a solo career as a singer and actor. For his role as Lola in Kinky Boots, he won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. He credits the part for "cracking open" his feminine side to confront toxic masculinity. He also won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for the musical's accompanying album.
Porter starred in all three seasons of the television series Pose, for which he was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and won the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, becoming the first gay black man to be nominated and win in any lead acting category at the Primetime Emmys. In 2020, he was included on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2022, he won another Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer for the musical A Strange Loop.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Billy Porter” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.