Biography
William Lucas (Bill) Walker is an Emmy-winning writer/producer best known for his work in television comedy. In 2024, 20th Television and AVC bought his spec pilot DADS OF DEWITT, with comedy legend Norman Lear attached as Executive Producer. Walker’s comedy was Lear's last active project at the time of his death.
Walker is known for his work on ROSEANNE, FRASIER (Emmy Award) and WILL & GRACE, voted three of the 101 Best Written TV Series by the Writers Guild of America. He left WILL & GRACE to create the critically-acclaimed THE CHRIS ISAAK SHOW, a single-cam hour comedy about the music industry, which ran for three seasons on Showtime.
Walker has developed new comedy series with Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions, Neil Meron, Craig Zadan, Laurence Mark Productions, Sony Television, Disney and ABC Television.
After a decade and a half writing for top television comedies, Walker took an extended hiatus from his TV career in 2006, spending the next 12 years as a full-time father. During this break, at the invitation of Arianna Huffington, Walker turned his unconventional parenting adventures into a recurring humor column for The Huffington Post. "Spilled Milk" -- the first regular column by an LGBT parent to run in a major U.S. publication -- made its debut on HuffPost's front page. With its unique comedic take on marriage, politics and the changing face of the American family, "Spilled Milk" quickly became a hit with readers, who spread the column widely on social media. (To read, click the "Links" tab.)
Walker returned to writing for television in 2018, selling the comedy/adventure series TIME/BOLT to Amazon Studios. He has since developed new series with Imagine Televison and Nina Tassler's PatMa Productions.
During the Covid shutdown, Walker began adapting his experiences as a gay father into a spec script for television. DADS OF DEWITT centers on what it might be like if Walker's liberal, two-daddy Los Angeles family relocated to his small hometown in conservative South Carolina. The script caught the eye of TV icon Norman Lear and partner Brent Miller of Act III Productions. Together they teamed up with Walker to exec produce DADS OF DEWITT, updating the classic Lear template of using laughter as a tool to examine the American family.
In June 2026, Walker began filming his first documentary, TO FIND MARGARET, on the life and work of acclaimed American realist/surrealist painter Margaret Morrison, as she and her gallery prepare for a New York retrospective exhibition spanning her entire career.
Prior to his television work, Walker was active in the New York theater. As founder and artistic director of Dragonfly Theatre Company, he collaborated with Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Lanford Wilson, directing the world premiere of Wilson's trio of one-acts, HALL OF NORTH AMERICAN FORESTS. On opening night Walker met television writer/producer Tom Fontana. Fontana became a mentor, inviting Walker to learn about television production by shadowing Fontana's New York series TATTINGER'S.
After reading Walker's first crack at a spec script, Fontana encouraged him to move to Los Angeles and pursue are career television. Fontana gave Walker his first TV writing assignment, on the NBC comedy HOME FIRES.
Soon after, Walker was invited to join the prestigious Warner Bros. Television Writers' Workshop. Upon completing the workshop, he was hired as a staff writer on the new ABC series THE JACKIE THOMAS SHOW. After writing special material for Roseanne Barr when she guested on the show, Walker was invited by Barr to join the writing staff of ROSEANNE. After three years honing his sitcom chops, Walker went on to write for the hit series FRASIER, CYBILL and WILL & GRACE, before leaving to co-create single-cam comedy THE CHRIS ISAAK SHOW for Showtime.
In the mid-90s, Walker became a founding member of SUNDAYS AT SEVEN, a series of floating dinners in L.A. restaurants aimed at bringing together a younger generation of TV writers with the legends who inspired their careers. Over dinner, comedy icons like Carl Reiner, Norman Lear, Mel Tonkin, Bob Newhart and Treva Silverman shared inside stories from their groundbreaking work on such classics as YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, I LOVE LUCY, ALL IN THE FAMILY, MAUDE, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and M*A*S*H. (To read an article about Sundays at Seven, click the "Links" tab above.)
Early in the Covid pandemic, the bitter national divide over masks prompted Walker to launch a social-media PSA campaign, the WHO AM I? MASK CHALLENGE. Ordinary Americans from 4 to 95 responded, posting their self-taped responses to the question, "Why do you wear a mask?" Soon athletes, Olympic gold medalists, TV, film and Broadway celebrities had joined in as well, using their personal voices to encourage the responsible use of mask-wearing to curb infection rates. (Website: WhoAmIMaskChallenge.)
In addition to HuffPost, Walker has written articles for the Writers Guild magazine Written By, Publishers Weekly, Your Teen Magazine, The Good Men Project and The New Civil Rights Movement. In early 2020, Walker returned for a month to the writers' room of ROSEANNE/THE CONNERS to cover that show's record-breaking reboot after 20 years off the air. (To read his article for Written By magazine -- "The Connors: Back on the Couch" -- click the "Links" tab.)
CAREER TRIVIA:
Walker's Season 4 FRASIER episode "Are You Being Served?" drew the longest studio-audience laugh in the show's 11-year run. (When Frasier panics at hearing a bang he thinks is a gunshot, Niles emerges from a bathroom covered in shaving cream from Martin's exploded Hot-n-Foamy dispenser.)
In his FRASIER episode "Roz's Krantz and Gouldenstein Are Dead" Walker was got to write guest character parts for acting legends Lois Smith and James Earl Jones. It was Jones' first appearance in a sitcom, resulting a comedy Emmy nod for Darth Vader.
Walker's "December Bride" episode for ROSEANNE made television history with prime time's first same-sex wedding. Fearing a negative reaction from viewers, ABC made the decision to run he episode in a later time slot, with a parental warning.
LIFE TRIVIA:
Born/raised in Clinton, SC; Eagle Scout; studied architecture; scholarship in stage design; AIDS activist with ACT UP New York; met husband at church; chews pencils; does not have a Wikipedia entry.
