William Randall Daniels (born September 25, 1951), better known by the stage name Billy Dee, is a retired American adult film actor.
Born and raised in San Diego, California, Daniels is of mixed ancestry, of Irish, Mexican and African heritage, one of six children; he has four brothers and a sister.
[1] He worked from the age of 11, often on his grandfather's farm milking the cows, and lost his virginity at 14 in a barn, although he did not have sex again until he was 17.
[1][2] Daniels had the most prominent part of his career during the second-wave of the so-called Golden Age of Porn from the mid-late 1980s to the early-mid 1990s.
In a period when the segregation of pornographic actors on racial lines was a sensitive issue and top female stars were often reluctant in performing with black males,[1] being a very light-skinned African American man ("everyone thought he just had a great tan")[3] and speaking "smoothly",[4] Daniels could pass for white, securing him roles in top-rated pornographic productions with prominent porn stars such as Marilyn Chambers (Marilyn Chambers' Private Fantasies series) and one-time girlfriend Nikki Knights,[3] following his debut with a small role in The Legend Of Lady Blue (1978) and also making him the only African American actor the 1980s top star Traci Lords had performed with.