William Atherton
E426286
William Atherton is an American character actor best known for playing arrogant and antagonistic authority figures in films such as Ghostbusters and Die Hard.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| William Atherton canonical | 6 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3672656 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: William Atherton Context triple: [Ghostbusters, hasCastMember, William Atherton]
-
A.
John Ashton
John Ashton is an American character actor best known for his tough, often blue-collar roles in crime and action films such as "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Midnight Run."
-
B.
John Brierley
John Brierley is the real-life Australian man whose childhood journey from India to adoption and later search for his birth family inspired the book and film "Lion."
-
C.
Philip Pugh
Philip Pugh is a notable individual distinguished enough to be specifically recognized as a bearer of the surname Pugh.
-
D.
Joseph Durkan
Joseph Durkan is a notable individual who shares the Durkan surname, recognized enough to be specifically identified among its bearers.
-
E.
Richard Pryce
Richard Pryce was a British novelist and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, known for his socially observant fiction and contributions to Victorian and Edwardian literature.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: William Atherton Target entity description: William Atherton is an American character actor best known for playing arrogant and antagonistic authority figures in films such as Ghostbusters and Die Hard.
-
A.
John Ashton
John Ashton is an American character actor best known for his tough, often blue-collar roles in crime and action films such as "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Midnight Run."
-
B.
John Brierley
John Brierley is the real-life Australian man whose childhood journey from India to adoption and later search for his birth family inspired the book and film "Lion."
-
C.
Philip Pugh
Philip Pugh is a notable individual distinguished enough to be specifically recognized as a bearer of the surname Pugh.
-
D.
Joseph Durkan
Joseph Durkan is a notable individual who shares the Durkan surname, recognized enough to be specifically identified among its bearers.
-
E.
Richard Pryce
Richard Pryce was a British novelist and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, known for his socially observant fiction and contributions to Victorian and Edwardian literature.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (42)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
character actor
ⓘ
film actor ⓘ human ⓘ stage actor ⓘ television actor ⓘ |
| activeIn |
film
ⓘ
television ⓘ theatre ⓘ |
| appearedIn |
Bio-Dome
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Ghostbusters II NERFINISHED ⓘ The Day of the Locust NERFINISHED ⓘ The Sugarland Express NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| appearsIn |
Die Hard
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Die Hard 2 NERFINISHED ⓘ Ghostbusters NERFINISHED ⓘ Real Genius NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| birthName | William Robert Atherton Knight NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1947-07-30 ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Carnegie Mellon University NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| familyName | Knight ⓘ |
| genreOfRoles |
antagonist
ⓘ
authority figure ⓘ |
| givenName | William ⓘ |
| knownFor | playing arrogant antagonistic authority figures ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| name | William Atherton NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Bio-Dome
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Die Hard NERFINISHED ⓘ Ghostbusters NERFINISHED ⓘ Real Genius NERFINISHED ⓘ The Day of the Locust NERFINISHED ⓘ The Sugarland Express NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| occupation | actor ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Orange, Connecticut, United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| portrayed |
Professor Jerry Hathaway
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Richard "Dick" Thornburg NERFINISHED ⓘ Walter Peck NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| residence |
Los Angeles
ⓘ
surface form:
Los Angeles, California, United States
|
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| yearsActive | 1970s–present ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: William Atherton Description of subject: William Atherton is an American character actor best known for playing arrogant and antagonistic authority figures in films such as Ghostbusters and Die Hard.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
"What'll I Do"