William Jesse Shirley (July 6, 1921 – August 27, 1989) was an American actor and tenor/lyric baritone singer who later became a Broadway theatre producer.

According to the Indianapolis Star, Inez first discovered her son's talent when he was around the age of five, when one day he began singing along to what she was playing on the piano.

He listened to Billy sing, and the "boy with the golden voice" soon appeared in films by 20th Century Fox, Columbia and Paramount Studios.

[3] Some of the boy's first acting roles were in rare or hard-to-find films, such as The Phantom President (1932) and As The Devil Commands (1933); the latter he sang Christmas carols in.

He appeared in nightclubs, including a six-week engagement at Monte Proser's famous Copacabana in early 1947,[10][11] the Latin Quarter in New York, the Mocambo in Los Angeles, and the Tropicana and Riviera in Las Vegas.

[15][16] Through producer George Jessel, Zanuck heard Bill sing and promptly put him under contract as a ghost singer for 20th Century-Fox.

He dubbed vocals for films including Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949) (Mark Stevens' singing voice) and Dancing In The Dark (1949), but was released by the studio for no known reason a few months later.

[19] In 1952 he got his only leading role onscreen: as Stephen Foster in I Dream of Jeanie, although actor Ray Middleton received the top billing.

The same year, he played Bruce Martingale, a singer at a local tavern, in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd.

[23] In November 1955, he appeared on Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts" show and won first place, although this did not always bring about much publicity or notice that was not localized to his home state.

[24] In July 1958, he returned to Indianapolis to play Curly in a Starlight Musicals production of Oklahoma!, alongside Grace Olsen and Will B.

Shirley was approached by the Walt Disney Company to provide the speaking and singing voice for the character of Prince Phillip in its animated version of Sleeping Beauty.

During the early 1950s, he was a regular guest on Bekins "Hollywood Music Hall" with actress Lucille Norman, who had worked with him in "Sweethearts on Parade".

[29][30][31] Shirley performed in several Starlight Musical Theater Company productions, such as "The Great Waltz" (1953), a play in which he portrayed Johann Strauss II.

Making his official debut in June 1952 as Bumerli in The Chocolate Soldier,[32] older newspaper and magazine articles confirm that he apparently received much acclaim for his acting and singing, especially in his portrayals of Johann Strauss II of "The Great Waltz", and Lt. Joseph Cable of South Pacific.

Specific industrial show sponsors include Oldsmobile, Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, RCA, National Cash Register Co., Ford Motor Co., and the General Electric Co.[34] Another famous vocal role of Shirley's (again as an uncredited ghost singer) was the singing voice of Freddy Eynsford-Hill (played by Jeremy Brett) in the Warner Bros. film of My Fair Lady.

However, he was a member of the Actors' Equity Association and continued to perform well after 1963, especially in industrial shows such as “Diesel Dazzle” and “A Step Ahead” in 1966, and returned to play Nat Miller in a Sacramento Music Circus production of “Take Me Along” in 1975.

For the last ten years of his life, he worked with Litton Industries in the real estate or electronics department, primarily in Beverly Hills.

He retired from the company in May 1989, three months before his death from lung cancer, at age 68 on August 27, 1989, at the Guardian Convalescent Hospital in Los Angeles.