American actor, assistant director, property man, and make-up artist with a distinctively "rumpled" nose. His real first and middle name was Leon Earl, though he was often referred to as Bill or Billy. He was working in films as early as 1917 with Fox, and in the 1920 Census, he is a studio property man. He was assistant director on some of Stan Laurel's 1923-24 Roach comedies, referred to internally and in the trades as both "L. E. Dill" and "William Dill." A 1923 newspaper blurb mentions Dill being "assistant manager" at the Roach studio. In the 1930 and 1940 Censuses, Dill is an actor in motion pictures; his 1942 World War II draft registration card notes his employer as Central Casting Corp.
During the 1940s, he transitioned from acting to working as a make-up artist, giving such as his occupation on his 1946 marriage certificate. In 1947, he was working at Warner Bros. on "Escape Me Never"; per that film's pressbook, Dill was a former "Keystone Cop" who, along with Hank Mann and Glen Cavender, "traded in their nightsticks for powder-puffs" and applied make-up on Warners films including "Never." In the 1950 Census, he is "unable to work."
Dill was married at least twice, first to Emily Phyllis Herstrom (1903-1976) around 1921; they had a daughter, Shirley Leone Dill (1922-1992), who as a baby was used in a Roach comedy (either Laurel or Spat Family) in late 1923. Dill later married Josephine Antoinette Campanaro (1913-1992) in 1946, with whom he had a son, William Alan Dill (b. 1947). The second marriage lasted until Dill's death eight years later.
Leon Earl Dill passed away at 1am on 6 May 1954, at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles, from cerebral thrombosis (duration: 36 hrs.) due to "arteriosclerosis, generalized" and diabetes mellitus. His obituaries in the Los Angeles newspapers refer to him as either Bill Dill or Leon E(arl). Dill, confirming them to be one and the same. He is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.
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