The journal British Cinematographer informed about the death of Williams. It was not given the reasons.
“We say goodbye to Billy Williams with deep sadness – an outstanding British author of film photos, a golden frog winner for outstanding achievements in film art during the Camerimage Festival in 2000. Poetic paintings created by Billy in such film masterpieces as “Nad Złotym Staw”“Women in love” or “Gandhi” Forever they will be a model and reference point for new generations of camera artists. Today, reaching for the fruit of a wooden plate, which Billy Williams made himself in his workshop and gave me, thanking for the festival, I remember the wonderful moments we spent, working on the album summarizing his work and playing at the festival, “wrote Marek Żydowicz, director of Energacameimage.
Born on June 3, 1929, Williams was the son of a documentary filmmaker and operator Billy Williams Sr. At the age of 14, he helped him to shoot war chronicles. Later, he accompanied his father in making films in British colonies.
Williams debuted as an operator in 1954 with the short film “Birthday”. In the 1960s, he began working with director Ken Russell. This is how he remembered her in an interview with “Web of Stories” from 2003. “I quickly found out that while working with Ken Russell he would ask for things that have never been done before and he would not want to hear that it could not be done. So I had to find some way to fulfill his wishes. It was a great challenge.”
Williams received three Oscar nominations – for photos for “women in love” (1970), “Nad Złotym Staw” (1981) and “Gandhi” (1982). For the last film he won a golden statuette, which he had to share with Ronna Taylor. After six weeks of photos for the epic biography directed by Richard Attenborough Williams left the plan to undergo surgery due to a falling disk. He proposed Taylor as his deputy. He returned to the set after four weeks. Unfortunately, he immediately had to leave him because of the disk re -falling out. Later he mentioned that in all his career he interrupted only the work twice.
Williams retired in 2000. Then he also received the Golden Frog for the lifetime of creativity at the Camerimage Festival. In 2006 he received the award from the British Association of Operators.