Willie Tyler
American actor
Willie Tyler (born September 8, 1940) is an American ventriloquist, comedian and actor. He has been credited as Willie Tyler and Lester or Willie Tyler & Lester. Tyler recorded the album Hello Dummy for Motown Records, released in 1965. He also recorded Cannibal for Motown in 1968, but it was not released. He has appeared in many television commercials, sitcoms and films. Tyler got his first big break in 1972 on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
Appearances
The duo made an early appearance at the Harlem Cultural Festival in the summer of 1969, and can be briefly seen in the 2021 documentary Summer of Soul.
Tyler has had guest roles in The Parent 'Hood, Pacific Blue, What's Happening Now!!, The White Shadow and The Jeffersons, as well as serving as host of the Saturday morning children's anthology series ABC Weekend Specials throughout the early 1980s. He appeared in the 1978 film Coming Home. Tyler has also appeared in television commercials for McDonald's, Toyota and Maxwell House.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Willie Tyler” is american actor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Willie, Tyler and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8021862. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1965, 1968 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Willie Tyler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.