Biography

Billy Gray

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Billy Gray was born on January 13, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA, as the son of famous actress Beatrice Gray. He was a successful child actor, known for Father Knows Best (1954), On Moonlight Bay (1951), and as Bobby in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). He went on the become an inventor and a competitive motor racer.
- IMDb mini biography by: blogmonstermike

In July 1998, he settled a libel suit he brought against noted film critic and historian Leonard Maltin, known for his annual guides on available movies and videos. In all guides from 1974-98, Maltin mistakenly listed Gray as a real-life drug addict and pusher in the critique of Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971); he appeared in the film only as an actor. Part of the settlement required that Maltin publicly apologize for the 27-year-long defamation of character. He did so during a press conference on the morning of July 18, 1998.
Inventor of the F-1 guitar pick.
Those who fondly recall him in the archetypal 1950s family sitcom Father Knows Best (1954) may be surprised to learn that when the series debuted in 1954, it did so poorly in the ratings that CBS canceled it in March of 1955. A flood of protests came from viewers insisting that the show be reinstated. It was moved to an earlier time, and it gradually became a hit.
His resemblance to Martin Sheen was exploited in the film short Porklips Now (1980), a parody of Apocalypse Now (1979), where he played the character of Health Inspector Will Dullard, based on Sheen's performance of Capt. Benjamin L. Willard.
Was just 12 years younger than Patricia Neal, who played his mother in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

[in 1983, on his Father Knows Best (1954) years] I wish there was some way I could tell kids not to believe it--the dialogue, the situations, the characters--they were all totally false. The show did everybody a disservice. The girls were always trained to use their feminine wiles, to pretend to be helpless to attract men. The show contributed to a lot of the problems between men and women that we see today . . . I think we were all well motivated, but what we did was run a hoax. Father Knows Best (1954) purported to be a reasonable facsimile of life. And the bad thing is that the model is so deceitful. It usually revolved around not wanting to tell the truth, either out of embarrassment or not wanting to hurt someone . . . If I could say anything to make up for all the years I lent myself to that kind of bullshit, it would be: "YOU Know Best".

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