Bill Mumy is a multi-talented, prolific artist who entered the arena of professional entertainment at the age of five. He has worked on over four hundred television shows and is best known by fans around the world for the creation of his memorable role as the heroic boy astronaut “Will Robinson” on the long running classic series “Lost in Space”. From 1993 through 1998 he played the noble, mystical “Lennier” in the popular science fiction series “Babylon 5”.
His most recent acting performances can be seen in guest starring roles
in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, “Diagnosis Murder”,
“Lost In Space: Forever” and the feature film, “Dirk
and Betty”. Currently Bill is narrating many of the prestigious
“A & E: Biography” episodes as well as hosting and
narrating several other documentaries and specials for A & E, The
Sci Fi Channel and E Entertainment.
Bill is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and
has been in seventeen feature films, including “Dear Brigitte”,
“Bless the Beasts and Children”, and “Papillion”.
With acclaimed writer Peter David, Bill co-created, produced and wrote
“Space Cases”, a live action sci-fi adventure comedy series
on Nickelodeon and syndicated in many countries all over the world.
The series ran for two seasons, 1996 -97, and was nominated for a Cable
Ace Award for best children’s series. He also co-wrote the
theme song for that show as well as the themes for the “TV Guide
Looks At...” specials, “Hollywood Backstory”, “Studio
Portraits” (both are European Fox television series) and has written
dozens of songs featured in the long running NBC soap opera “Santa
Barbara”. Bill also composed the scores to three episodes
of the award winning PBS series, “The Universe and I”as well
as contributing dozens of songs and themes to many different film and
television projects. Most notably, Bill was nominated for an emmy
for song composition in 1992 for the Disney series “Adventures In
Wonderland”. Bill wrote and recorded one hundred and five
songs for the one hundred episodes of that series.
His most recent producing and writing credit is the 1998 one hour syndicated
special, “Lost In Space: Forever”. Bill also returned
to the role of “Will Robinson” on camera for that special
as well as arranging and performing the end credit music for the show.
He has worked with the pop group “America” off and on for
over fifteen years, composing, producing and performing with the band.
As a songwriter Bill has supplied songs to such varied artists as pop
stars America, David and Shaun Cassidy, to jazz artists like Sarah
Taylor, Sea Wind and the legendary Rosemary Clooney.
Bill has released four solo CD’s, “After Dreams Come True”
(Oglio: 2001), “Pandora’s Box” (2000), 1 “In The
Current” (1999) and ‘97’s “Dying To Be Heard”.
These albums are released on Renaissance records.
Bill is half of the infamous novelty rock recording and short film making
duo “Barnes and Barnes”. Best known for the classic
demented song and film “Fish Heads”, Barnes and Barnes have
released nine albums and a feature length videotape. Rolling Stone
magazine named Fish Heads # 57 of the all time greatest rock videos ever
created. Their latest CD release is “Yeah: The Essential Barnes
& Barnes” (2000) on Oglio Records.
“The Jenerators”, Bill’s performing rock band that he
fronts with fellow actor and sometimes writing partner Miguel Ferrer,
has released two albums, the most recent, 1998’s “Hitting
the Silk” on Universal’s Verese Serabande label. 1999
also saw the release of “The Be Five: Trying To Forget”, another
Renaissance CD written and produced by Bill featuring vocals by actors
from Babylon 5.
Bill’s cassette album for children, “Kiss My Boo Boo”
was another ’98 release and two of Bill’s songs are featured
on ’98 Windham Hill releases.
Mumy is also a prolific voice over artist and can be heard on animated
shows like “Ren and Stimpy”, “Batman: the Animated
Series”, “Steven Spielberg’s Animaniacs”, and
the Disney series, “Buzz Lightyear: Star Command”. He
also voices dozens of national commercials such as “Farmer’s
Insurance” “Ford”, “Bud Ice”, “Blockbuster”,
“Twix”, “Wal Mart” and “MacDonald’s”.
Comic books have been a passion of Bills since childhood, and he has written
scores of them. He co-created “The Comet Man” and “The
Dreamwalker” for Marvel as well as scripting “The Hulk”,
“Spider-Man”, “Iron Man”, “She Hulk”,
“Wonder Man” and other Marvel characters. He also wrote the
“Lost in Space” comic book for Innovation in the early 90’s.
His co-creation “Trypto, The Acid Dog” was featured in “Dark
Horse Presents”. For DC comics he’s written “Aquaman”,
“The Spectre” and three issues of the “classic”
“Star Trek” series.
His short stories, “The Black ‘59” and “The Undeadliest
Game” co-written with Peter David, were originally printed in Pocket
Books, “Shock Rock” and “Shock Rock Volume 2”.
They’re now published in many languages all over the world.
Mumy and David also wrote an episode of the acclaimed animated series
“Roswell Conspiracies”.
Bill lives in the Hollywood Hills with his wife Eileen, son Seth and daughter
Liliana, dogs Hurley and Obaldo-Bucky, cat Gretsch, hamsters and an aquarium
of fish. He is currently writing and developing several new projects
for feature films and television and has recently completed co-writing
a fantasy novel with Angela Cartwright.
A short time ago TV Guide listed their top 100 television episodes of
all time. Two of them starred Bill Mumy.