The Guinness World Records honored Bill Blair with The Most Special Effect Makeup Characters Portrayed in a Career award. Bill said, “It is a feeling of accomplishment and a good feeling that it is a goal that I hadn’t even set for myself.” On Oct. 9, 2011, there was a presentation for Bill at the Hollywood Guinness World Record Museum.
Almost four years ago, the Guinness World Records invited Bill Blair to submit the details about his career as an alien and monster actor for a new category. Even though the Guinness World Records has stringent submission and documentation guidelines, Bill accepted the daunting challenge.
With so many roles, it took him several years just to gather all of the information. He found every TV show and movie where he portrayed a special effects character, created a video clip of it, and printed a photo of the character. With the data he gathered, he created an extensive spreadsheet, which included the character, show title, director and many other required details. It took even more time to triple check the information before sending it to Guinness World Records.
During his interview he was very personable, but people who work with him in Hollywood like him due to his professionalism. He has a solid reputation for his hard work, great attitude and dependability. It requires long hours to apply special effects makeup, and then Bill has to wear the makeup for many uncomfortable hours on the set. But, during all the discomfort, he maintains his professional attitude.
He primarily works in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but says he “has no problems going anywhere in the world to work.” In 2012, he’s portraying parts in a few movies, including Argo, starring Ben Affleck.
Bill isn’t only an actor, he’s a producer, model, musician, writer and casting assistant. He started out as a professional musician at 16 years old. He was in three bands, including Expressions, Climax who had the hit Precious and Few, and Classics IV with the hit song Traces. Due to an injury while touring, he ended up in Chicago and began commercial modeling. It was his commercial modeling jobs that led to his acting career.
In the early 1980s he began to teach acting and modeling. Based on his years of experience as a teacher, he wrote the book The Professionals Talent Handbook: The Guide to Getting Started. The book was published in 1986. Bill said, “Since the book is out of date with today’s technology, I’m working on a second edition for 21st century talents.”
For more details about Bill’s career, see IMDb.com. However, note that a lot of his uncredited work hasn’t been added to IMDB yet. Bill also has a new fan page on Facebook. His website, The Alien Actor, has links to his photos and his fan club.