Knight spent most of his life in front of an audience. He started performing at age five with Aimee Semple MacPherson at the Angeles Temple, then spent nearly a decade touring the country as Little Billy Knight, billed as the World's Youngest Boy Preacher. He eventually transitioned to theater at LACC before landing his Broadway debut in the notorious production of Oh! Calcutta!, which gave him his entrée to New York's theater scene. He stayed in the city for 15 years, working on and off Broadway.
His stage work was prolific and varied. He's tackled most of Neil Simon's plays in dinner theater, taken on classical roles ranging from Iago in Othello to the Sheriff in Much Ado About Nothing, and gave what he considered his most moving performance in the title role of Brian Friel's Faith Healer off Broadway. He loved 1776 so much it became his favorite musical.
Interestingly, while serving as an enlisted man in the USAF, Knight played three of the 20th century's most famous generals: MacArthur in the off-Broadway production The Bonus Army, Eisenhower in the Broadway show An Evening With Richard Nixon, and Patton in a Lockheed corporate video.
His film and television credits include an early appearance in the original Star Trek, followed by roles in Stargate, I Got the Hookup, and The Garbage Man, among others. He also appeared in various webisodes and sketches online, voiced countless documentaries and commercials, and spent several years announcing the CBS Channel 2 News.
Knight died in North Hollywood, California on November 8, 2022, at the age of 88.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
