Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11471
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Bill Bixby represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 45 years in, and Bill is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Bill Bixby appears in 3 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Bill. Irma la Douce is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are transformation, versatility, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Louis Leterrier, Bill Bixby, Billy Wilder, Bill Bixby helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Irma la Douce (1963) as Tattooed Sailor · The Incredible Hulk (2008) as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited) · The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989) as David Banner
Career snapshot
Ranked #11471 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
3
1963–2008
Career length
45 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Irma la Douce
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Irma la Douce
Most frequent director
Louis Leterrier
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Louis Leterrier
Most common genre
Action
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.9
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1960s
7.1 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. Irma la Douce — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Irma la Douce.
Most productive era
1960s
1 film
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1960s | 1980s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.11 film | 6.41 film | — |
| Action | — | 6.41 film | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | 7.11 film | — | — |
| Romance | 7.11 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1963Irma la Douce
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tattooed Sailor. 7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
1989The Trial of the Incredible Hulk
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
3 of 3 films
as David Banner
Directed by Bill Bixby
as Tattooed Sailor
Directed by Billy Wilder
as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
Directed by Louis Leterrier
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
David Banner
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. David Banner gives Bill Bixby a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tattooed Sailor
Irma la Douce (1963)
Performance score7.0
Irma la Douce asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tattooed Sailor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Performance score6.5
The Incredible Hulk asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as David Banner
Start here. The Trial of the Incredible Hulk is the clearest statement of what Bill Bixby does — accessible, 95 minutes, and rated 6.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Bill at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Irma la Douce (1963)
Keeps the drama register of The Trial of the Incredible Hulk but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Irma la Douce — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Billy Wilder
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Irma la DouceLouis Leterrier
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Incredible HulkBill Bixby
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Trial of the Incredible HulkSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Irma la Douce
as Tattooed Sailor
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Irma la Douce
as Tattooed Sailor
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Irma la Douce
as Tattooed Sailor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Incredible Hulk
as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk
as David Banner
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Bill Bixby has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
45 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Action Legend
Awarded
2 catalogue titles in action, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Irma la Douce
as Tattooed Sailor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Incredible Hulk
as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Irma la Douce
as Tattooed Sailor
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk
as David Banner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Incredible Hulk
as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Incredible Hulk
as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Irma la Douce
as Tattooed Sailor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Incredible Hulk
as Tom Corbett (archive footage) (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Bill Bixby performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
