Lando Calrissian from Star Wars

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Hang on, why was it set ‘a long time ago’? It has no reference whatsoever to human history and if it was in fact a long time ago as Lucas tells us then how technically advanced must they be today?! And why haven’t they found us yet? Morons. But I digress…

Not presenting the audience with the best of first impressions, Lando arrived in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as what seems like regional manager of Bespin or Cloud City, but in his own words he could have been mistaken for a “slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler”.

Why the bad impression? Because he sold out his old friend Han Solo to Darth Vadar, froze him in carbonite and shipped into the clutches of Jabba the Fat Ass. That’ll do it.

With some serious repentance to do and one of the few who could actually understand the gurgley groans of Chewbacca, Lando took the helm of the Millennium Falcon (which he lost to Solo in a bet once) and joined the rebel band of misfits helping them to victory against the evil Empire…with a little help from the Ewoks.

Sporting one of the narliest taches in sci-fi, Billy Dee Williams (middle name ‘December’ like a damsel in a 1950’s film noir) played our boy Lando, amidst dubious rumours of being the 'token black guy' - not that we could comment on that either way. But where is he now?

Son to janitor and an elevator operator, Williams was born in 1937 which means he’s now 72 years old! Crikey. Click here to see him - doesn't he look well!

Back in the day, Williams’ career got going in the 50s where he appeared on Broadway and then moved into film. His film debut was in 1959 in The Last Angry Man but his first major success was in the TV movie Brian’s Song (1971) which earned him an Emmy nomination.

Williams originally auditioned for Han Solo which of course went to Harrison Ford. Luckily though he still got to fly the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back where Williams found notoriety and engrained himself in film history.

Since leaving the galaxy, Williams has always been true to his rebel roots, voicing Lando in the Star Wars video games and also voicing his character along with George Lucas and Mark Hamill in the Star Wars special of Seth Green’s Robot Chicken which ended up bagging an Emmy nomination.

Always willing to parody his character he also featured as Lando in a funnyordie video in a mock political advert recommending himself as leader of the galaxy.  He also played Pastor Dan in That 70s Show as a character obsessed with Star Wars.

He’s also since been in a number of films and television series but truthfully nothing that Williams has appeared in since has rocked the boat as much as Star Wars - HOWEVER…

A year after Return of the Jedi, Williams became a cast member in Dynasty in 1984 as Brady Lloyd, husband to Dominique Deveraux.

Old Lando turned up as district attorney Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman. He apparently took the role in a view to playing him in the sequel as super-naughty-man Two-Face.

But the studio decided to pay a penalty fee to Williams to break his contract enabling them to cast Tommy Lee Jones as the villain when Batman Forever surfaced.

Billy also came under fire for endorsing a malt liquor but he didn’t really care – he responded by saying “I drink, you drink. Hell, if marijuana was legal, I'd appear in a commercial for it.”

Bringing it back to the 21st century, those who stuck with the ‘will-we-ever-figure-what-the-hell-this-is-about’ TV series Lost will have seen a cameo from him playing himself in a flashback in Season 3.

He also popped up in Scrubs as himself playing Julie’s (Mandy Moore) godfather. Williams’ most recently starred in an internet-based show Diary of a Single Mom as ‘Uncle Bo’ and voiced the delightfully-titled character Admiral Bitchface in the stop-motion [adultswim] cartoon Titan Maximum.

Make the force be with you.