William "Billy" Rosewood is a fictional character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 from the Beverly Hills Cop film series

Beverly Hills Cop (film series)

Beverly Hills Cop is a series of action-comedy films, with characters written by Daniel Petrie, Jr. and Danilo Bach. The films star Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold and John Ashton, though Ashton does not appear in Beverly Hills Cop III. Harold Faltermeyer produced the now famous "Axel F" theme song...

, and is portrayed by Judge Reinhold

Judge Reinhold

Judge Reinhold is an American actor, perhaps best known for co-starring in movies such as Beverly Hills Cop, Ruthless People, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and The Santa Clause trilogy.-Early life:...

.

Fictional character biography

Billy was born in 1960 and joined the Beverly Hills Police Department

Beverly Hills Police Department

The Beverly Hills Police Department is the police department of the City of Beverly Hills, California. The current police chief of the BHPD is David L. Snowden.-History:...

 in 1981. A good cop, Billy is known to go strictly by the book, and is not as tough as his partner, John Taggart. In the first film

Beverly Hills Cop

Beverly Hills Cop is a 1984 American comedy-action film directed by Martin Brest and starring Eddie Murphy, Lisa Eilbacher, John Ashton, Judge Reinhold, and Ronny Cox...

, he was generally polite and bumbling, and not particularly competent at anything, until it was revealed toward the end of the film that he had excellent marksmanship with a pistol. The second film

Beverly Hills Cop II

Beverly Hills Cop II is a 1987 action-comedy film starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Tony Scott. It is the first sequel in the Beverly Hills Cop series. Murphy returns as Detroit police detective Axel Foley, who returns to Beverly Hills, California to track down a joint robbery/gun-running ring...

 expands on this, showing Rosewood having and using excessive firepower and weaponry, as demonstrated by the line: "Billy, we gotta talk."

Beverly Hills Cop II

Time Magazine made specific note of the character development for Billy from the first film to the second, and offered he "provides a high, sweet note of mysterious absurdity."

Beverly Hills Cop IV

As the character has been referred to as "one of the series’ high-points", controversy arose over Brett Ratner

Brett Ratner

Brett Ratner is an American film director, film producer and music video director. He is best known for directing the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He was also a producer on the Fox drama series, Prison Break.- Early life :Ratner was...

’s having the character being "killed off" in the planned fourth film in the series, a plot wherein the character of Axel Foley returns to Los Angeles to personally invesitigate Billy's death after his fall from a 20-story building was pronounced by police as a suicide.

External links

• Det. William 'Billy' Rosewood at the Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...