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Red Dead Redemption

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Bill Williamson, Voiced by Steve J. Palmer (Interview)
Antagonist

Bill Williamson

Voiced by Steve J. Palmer (Interview)

Bill Williamson is one of the named cast of Red Dead Redemption, working as antagonist. The facts below are the ones the wiki records.

Standing between John Marston and the family the government is holding.

Role
Antagonists
Voice actor
Steve J. Palmer (Interview)
Occupation
Soldier (formerly) Outlaw Gang leader Deputy (temporarily)
Affiliations
United States Army (formerly), Van der Linde gang (formerly), Williamson gang (leader), Mexican Army
Also known as
William Williamson, Albert Danielson, Marion Williamson, Billy the Cowboy, Dynamite Williamson

Player notes

Marion Williamson grows up fearing the alcoholism that destroys his father, and abandons the name Marion for Bill. After reform school and further crimes, he joins the United States Army, fights Native Americans and is dishonorably discharged for deviancy and attempted murder in 1892. He spends the following year robbing travelers and drinking. When he tries to hold up Dutch van der Linde and Hosea Matthews, they have already taken his ammunition. Dutch offers him a place in the Van der Linde gang, earning Bill's lasting loyalty.

Bill rides with Dutch's gang for years as a gunman, taking part in robberies, raids, killings and kidnappings. After the Blackwater ferry robbery goes wrong in 1899, he flees with the gang to Colter. There, a quarrel with Micah Bell ends when Micah punches him and the others separate them. Bill then rides beside Micah in Dutch's attack on an O'Driscoll camp. During the Cornwall train robbery, he sets the track explosives, but the detonator does not stop the train.

At Horseshoe Overlook, Bill drinks with Javier Escuella and Charles Smith in Valentine. A man bumps into him, and the dispute becomes a barroom brawl. Dutch later has Bill question the captive O'Driscoll Kieran Duffy. Bill threatens Kieran with heated tongs until Kieran reveals an O'Driscoll hideout. Bill joins Arthur Morgan and John Marston in the attack, then helps persuade Arthur to let Kieran remain with the gang after Kieran saves Arthur's life.

At Clemens Point, Sheriff Leigh Gray temporarily makes Bill, Arthur and Dutch deputies. With Deputy Archibald MacGregor, they destroy a Lemoyne Raiders moonshine operation and fight its defenders. Bill also rides with Uncle, Arthur and Charles on a stagecoach robbery that brings Cornwall's men down on them. Trapped in a burning barn, they shoot their way out. He helps Karen Jones plan the Valentine bank robbery and escapes the town with Arthur and Lenny Summers after the law intervenes.

Bill later brings Arthur and Tilly Jackson on a stagecoach robbery, arguing with Tilly before abandoning stealth and attacking the coach. He accompanies Arthur, Sean MacGuire and Micah to Rhodes on a supposed Gray family job. The Grays ambush them, kill Sean and capture Bill. Arthur and Micah clear the street, kill Sheriff Gray and free him. Bill is ordered to bury Sean, then joins the gang's assault on Braithwaite Manor after Jack Marston is taken.

By 1911, Bill leads the Williamson gang from Fort Mercer in Rรญo Bravo. Bureau of Investigation agents force John Marston to find him. John approaches the fort alone, but Bill refuses to surrender and has his men shoot John, leaving him wounded. Once recovered, John works across New Austin with Bonnie MacFarlane, Marshal Leigh Johnson and their allies, seeking the force needed to break Bill's hold on Fort Mercer.

When John and the local posse storm Fort Mercer, Bill escapes to Nuevo Paraรญso. He enters Colonel Allende's Mexican Army and becomes a deputy at Escalera, where he again has men seize John. John allies with Abraham Reyes and attacks Escalera with the rebels. Allende forces Bill from the wagon carrying him away, and Bill faces John outside the town. John either kills him in the gunfight or leaves him to be taken into custody.

Trivia

  • โ—†Bill states that the reason he joined Dutch's cause is that he saw what power can do to people while he was in the army. This foreshadows his own fate, as 12 years later Bill becomes a ruthless megalomaniac and a shadow of his former self while being in charge of his own gang.
  • โ—†Bill is seemingly unaware that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
  • โ—†The pin which holds the side of Bill's hat up in Red Dead Redemption bears the symbol of the Freemasons (The Square and Compasses).
  • โ—†In Red Dead Redemption 2, however, the pin is a U.S Cavalry insignia.
  • โ—†In Red Dead Redemption, Billโ€™s real name was identified as William Williamson in No. 58 of the Blackwater Ledger. Although, in Red Dead Redemption 2, Billโ€™s real name was confirmed to be Marion Williamson. It could be assumed that nobody outside of the original gang knew his birth name and thus the full name of Bill (William) was used instead.
  • โ—†Bill's birth name, Marion, could be a reference to the iconic Western actor Marion Robert Morrison, better known under his screen name "John Wayne". Morrison stopped using the name Marion, (which could be considered a feminine name for a man and solicited some ridicule during his childhood years) and adopted the name "Duke" Morrison at an early age. Fox Studios would later bill him as "John Wayne" for his first leading role in "The Big Trail" (1930), the name which he employed for the rest of his professional career. This is notable as in the Red Dead Redemption story, Bill was given the name Marion as his birth name, but later on chose to stop using it because he found it to be too feminine, and instead went on to use a name of his own choice which he found to be more appropriate for a man. Arthur Morgan actor Roger Clark has explicitly stated on several occasions, that he believes that the choice to have Bill be a "cowboy" who, at birth was given the female first name "Marion", and later in life opted to drop that name in favor of a more traditionally male name, to be a deliberate allusion to John Wayne ("I don't think that [Bill's real name being Marion] is a coincidence"), while Steve J. Palmer, who plays Bill, has called the developers' choice to have Bill's real name secretly be Marion "a great homage" to the movie genre of Westerns.
  • โ—†Bill's first name Marion could also be a reference to one of the real life Dalton brothers, William Marion Dalton, better known as Bill Dalton.
  • โ—†Coincidentally, both Bill and Micah start their own criminal gangs after leaving the Van der Linde gang, only to be hunted down and disbanded by their former comrade John Marston. However, in Bill's case, John did it reluctantly as he was forced by Edgar Ross and the BOI in exchange for his family's safety and release, whereas in Micah's case, John did it willingly out of a desire to avenge Arthur's death. However, the only difference is that while Micah directly fights and tries to kill John himself, Bill instead has his men attempt to kill him while running away himself or avoiding direct confrontation out of cowardice despite threatening to kill John.
  • โ—†Bill, like Micah, often harasses other gang members, albeit to a lesser extent, such as when he routinely calls Javier a "greaser", makes Kieran uncomfortable, shoves and pushes Lenny to the ground, trips Charles and verbally abuses him before being punched as seen in a cut event or when he punches Simon Pearson in the face while drunk. Unlike Micah however, Bill does not harass the female members of the gang or Jack Marston and is also friendly with the dog Cain.
  • โ—†Bill appears to have been less educated than John and Dutch, taking offense at John's larger vocabulary in their first encounter at Fort Mercer; namely, the word "implore".
  • โ—†Bill is partly bald, revealed when Allende shoves him out of the wagon and his hat falls off. It can also be seen by shooting off his hat, or by playing Poker or Liar's Dice with him in Multiplayer.
  • โ—†Most, if not all, of Bill's multiplayer quotes seems to be directed at John.
  • โ—†In an interview with Retroplayer, Steven J. Palmer, the voice of Bill Williamson, compared the relationship between John Marston and Bill Williamson to that of siblings, with Dutch being more of a "parental figure". Palmer also stated that Bill was envious of John's relationship with Abigail and bitter that she chose Marston over him. He also added that John was once a positive moral influence on Bill, and that once John left the gang, Bill began to "tailspin out of control" without John's moral support.
  • โ—†Bill seems to have a strong preference for rifles over pistols. In Red Dead Redemption 2, his main weapon is the Bolt Action Rifle and, although he does carry a custom Schofield Revolver with a black steel frame, it is extremely seldom used. In the original Red Dead Redemption, Bill is seen with a Winchester Repeater and doesn't seem to carry a sidearm at all.
  • โ—†Williamson's apparent preference for rifles most likely stems from his time in the Army, where a rifle would have been his primary weapon while he would have had little experience in using a revolver.
  • โ—†It is implied that Bill might be either gay or bisexual consistently throughout the game:
  • โ—†One of the reasons for his dishonorable discharge was "deviancy".
  • โ—†He was ecstatic when Dutch asked him to hold a pair of tongs to Kieran's privates, and would later taunt him again with them for fun. Later, he's seen trying to forcibly invite Kieran to drink his beer and gets flustered when he gets turned away, and after Kieran's death he admits he was starting to like him. Charles even states that Bill doesn't like many people at all "except for maybe that Kieran".
  • โ—†Arthur says that Bill carries around a big secret, though no mention of his sexuality is explicitly made.
  • โ—†In "Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego", Hosea says "Lenny and Jenny could never work", like "Arthur and Martha", both names for opposite sexes that rhyme. Hosea then says "Bill and Phil", that are names that do indeed rhyme, but are for the same sex.
  • โ—†In the mission "Americans at Rest", Arthur asks, "He about to kiss that guy or punch him?" when Bill grabs a man, starting the bar fight.
  • โ—†Right before "A Short Walk in a Pretty Town", Micah tells Bill that he looks nice, to which he immediately assumes he's being teased.
  • โ—†After Arthur gets raped by Sonny, Bill will admit to having met with him and it's implied that the rapist talked in detail about Arthur.
  • โ—†He requests hair pomade (which could be used as lubricant) from Arthur, which is off-putting to the latter.
  • โ—†Him choosing to go by the name Bill, a male name, rather than Marion, a unisex name, possibly hints at insecurity; an attempt to keep his sexuality a secret (homosexuality is often associated with femininity).
  • โ—†In the first game, John says to Javier "So you and Bill are back together? Two crazy men sharin' a bed".
  • โ—†He claims to have "fucked with Abigail" in the first game's mission "An Appointed Time". This would, if not merely a taunt, hint at bisexuality.
  • โ—†In a random conversation in camp, Bill will ask Arthur if he thinks Karen is sweet on him.
  • โ—†If Arthur shows enough hostility towards the gang, Bill may punch and throw him out of the camp, just like Lenny, John, Charles, Sean, and Javier.
  • โ—†Occasionally, Bill may be captured by bounty hunters and Javier will ask Arthur to help free him.
  • โ—†Bill is one of the members of the gang who can be sent by Dutch to track down Arthur if he has spent a long time away from camp. After he has found Arthur, the player then has the option to fast travel back to camp with him.
  • โ—†"The Dedham" outfit in Red Dead Online is based on one of Bill's main outfits.
  • โ—†During "The Gilded Cage", Bill, under the alias of Albert Danielson, tells Brynn Tildon he comes from the "northwest". It is possible that he did not fabricate that piece of information, as he goes on to tell Hector Fellowes that he was in the army. Bill simply giving out details about his own personal life instead of crafting a beleivable persona (like Hosea) fits well into his not being "the brightest".
  • โ—†In Undead Nightmare among the writings on the walls of buildings in Blackwater one writing reads "Things are different now". These words are said by Williamson to John before wounding him at Fort Mercer.
  • โ—†Bill does not appear in Undead Nightmare physically, but he is mentioned by John while talking to Mother Superior.
View on Red Dead Wiki โ†’

Character data from Red Dead Wiki, CC BY-SA. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games.

Last verified September 14, 2026