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William Billy Haines On Sale

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Billy Haines Iconic Faux Bamboo and Glass Table 1970
By William Billy Haines
Located in New York, NY
Rare and elegant faux bamboo table in steel and glass with brass accents by Billy Haines, American 1970. The table has beautiful lines and an impressive understated aesthetic. The...
Category

Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Console Tables

Materials

Brass, Steel

6 Rojo Alicante Marble Occasional Tables/Plant Stands by William “Billy” Haines
By William Billy Haines
Located in Southampton, NJ
A beautiful set of 6 occasional tables or plant stands designed by Hollywood Regency legend William “Billy” Haines having Rojo Alicante marble houses in brass frames. A truly stunni...
Category

Vintage 1950s American Hollywood Regency End Tables

Materials

Marble, Brass

William 'Billy' Haines Brass Table Set
By William Billy Haines
Located in San Francisco, CA
Willian Haines polished brass table set with capiz shell top with four chairs reupholstered in a blue Maharam wool.
Category

Vintage 1950s American Card Tables and Tea Tables

Amazing Pair of William Haines Polished Brass Chairs
By William Billy Haines
Located in San Francisco, CA
William Haines polished brass chairs with new wool velvet upholstery.
Category

Vintage 1940s American Chairs

Four Dining or Game Table Chairs by William Haines for Profiles
By William Billy Haines
Located in Kingston, NY
Billy Haines’s Drum chair upholstered in burgundy leather (back and welt) and fuschia woven fabric (seat). Dark wood tapered, splayed legs and brass back detail. Excellent vintage co...
Category

Vintage 1980s American Side Chairs

Set of 8 Vintage Alvar Aalto Dining Chairs- Modified by William Haines, 1943
By William Billy Haines
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This rare set of eight Alvar Aalto dining chairs were modified by designer William Haines in 1943 for the Prinzmetal family in Beverly Hills. The chairs are in original condition, a...
Category

Vintage 1940s American Dining Room Chairs

Materials

Leather

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William Billy Haines for sale on 1stDibs

Plenty of prolific designers started off on slightly different tracks than those on which they ended up, but rarely did they begin their careers in a totally separate industry like William “Billy” Haines did. Before he gained a reputation as a furniture designer and decorator to Hollywood’s biggest and brightest, Haines was himself a star of the silver screen.

After leaving his native Virginia as a young man, Haines earned modeling and acting jobs in New York City and then won a Goldwyn Studios talent contest in the early 1920s. The next frontier was California, where he would go on to appear in more than 50 films. His acting career was halted abruptly in 1933, allegedly because he refused to leave his partner, British footballer Jimmy Shields, at the request of his representation at MGM Studios. Whether it was the fact that Haines was one half of Hollywood’s first openly gay marriage or that there were other factors at play, MGM cofounder Louis B. Mayer canceled his contract.

Luckily for Haines, he had nurtured a side career that kept him on Hollywood’s radar: He was a prominent antiques dealer on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Haines dedicated himself full-time to both dealing and designing furniture as soon as his tenure as a leading man came to an end.

Haines collaborated with the era’s biggest names in architecture and created a desert living room for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco that featured walls made of California Joshua wood and a painting by Georgia O’ Keeffe. He paid close attention to lighting design, employed hand-painted wallpaper and favored featuring Chinese ceramics alongside Chippendale chairs and ottomans for entertaining. His most famous clients included Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Betsy Bloomingdale and more. Crawford played a significant role in kick-starting his career when she commissioned Haines to decorate her entire home in Brentwood.

Haines was such an esteemed tastemaker that he’s among those credited with having cemented Hollywood Regency as a reputable design style. (Its origins are owed to influential interior decorator Dorothy Draper.) While he gravitated toward the look of chinoiserie and English furniture, his signature was low-level seating and giltwood accents. Haines’s interior design style was so in vogue that Nancy Reagan became one of his biggest fans and eventually enlisted Ted Graber, Haines’s successor following his death in 1973, to decorate several private and public rooms in the White House.

Find a collection of vintage William Haines lounge chairs, lighting fixtures and other furniture on 1stDibs.