At a very early age, William, or Billy as he was known, moved with the family to live in Glengormley. Boyd was raised Presbyterian and attended the local primary school and Ballyclare High School. At the age of 14, Boyd quit school to work and earn money to help support his family.
He eventually joined the Ulster Group Theatre, where he learned the behind-the-scenes tasks of the theatre. He became well known in Belfast for his contributions as a gravel-voiced policeman on the Ulster Radio programme "The McCooeys", the story of a Belfast family written by Joseph Tomelty. Boyd eventually worked his way up to character parts and then starring roles.
By nineteen he had toured Canada with summer stock companies. Boyd later recalled this as "the best performance I ever gave in my life". By the time he was 20, Boyd had a wide range of theatre experience, but he longed for the big stage. The Leicester Square Cinema across the street recruited him to usher attendees during the British Academy Awards in the early s.
During the awards ceremony, he was noticed by actor Sir Michael Redgrave , who used his connections to introduce Boyd to the director of the Windsor Repertory Group. The movie was released in April Shortly thereafter, he signed a ten-year contract with 20th Century Fox studios, [ 11 ] who began prepping him for Hollywood, but it was a while until Boyd actually set foot on a Hollywood back-lot. This was filmed in the summer of in London, where the British Navy built a huge 35,gallon water tank for the movie.
Boyd was loaned out to the J. Around the same time, French actress Brigitte Bardot was given the opportunity to cast her own leading man in her next movie after her success in Roger Vadim 's And God Created Woman , and she chose Boyd. Boyd finally arrived in Hollywood in January to take on his first true Hollywood role as the leader of a quartet of renegade outlaws in the Twentieth Century Fox western The Bravados , which starred Gregory Peck and Joan Collins. Even though this was a Hollywood production, the actual filming took place in Morelia , Mexico.
