Billy T James is a New Zealand entertainment icon, still fondly remembered for his many stage and television appearances, plus the role of a crazed Māori-Mexican bandito in movie Came a Hot Friday. A gifted impressionist, Billy's affectionate portraits of Māori (and many other nationalities) pushed the boundaries of Kiwi comedy. His trademark giggle is embedded in the country's popular culture; nearly half the respondents in a 2009 Listener poll voted him our greatest local comedian.

Billy grew up as William James Te Wehi Taitoko, first in the Waikato town of Leamington, then in Whangarei. At high school he sang and played guitar in a band. Popular for drawing caricatures of his teachers, Billy would begin an apprenticeship as a signwriter after leaving school.

In his mid-20s he was invited to join showband the Maori Volcanics, and was soon performing around the world, echoing the path of entertainers John Rowles and Frankie Stevens. He quickly showed his skills as impressionist, comedian, guitarist and saxophone-player. While living in Australia Billy went solo, dropping his Taitoko surname, and rearranging his birth names to "something the Aussies could pronounce".

  As Matt Elliott writes in his biography Billy T - The Life and Times of Billy T James, Billy's tours with the Volcanics and Prince Tui Teka meant that unlike most acts, "he arrived on the local scene almost perfectly formed". He already "knew his routines intricately. Every inflection, every pause, every chuckle, every step had been honed in hundreds of perfomances offshore." 

In 1982, Don Selwyn cast Billy in a small, non-comedic role in tele-playThe Protestors, playing communist Bobby Watson. When the second season of The Billy T James show began, Billy suggested adding a very different role into the mix: a down home take-off of Māori news bulletinTe Karere, with Billy in a black singlet, a yellow towel round his neck. Billy had roadtested the Te News sketch on stage; it won fans, and criticism that he was stereotyping Māori, which Billy firmly denied. He argued that his humour concentrated on accents and mannerisms, and that perfecting an accent played a part in making the humour more acceptable. "I think I've just come in in the middle of this quiet spot where everyone's too frightened to say anything and just done it. There's still further to go."

The above text is part of an article published athttp://www.nzonscreen.com/person/billy-t-james . 

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