William Packer is a film producer, writer, director and actor of films such as The Gospel, Pandora's Box, and Trois.

Packer is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.

Doctor William Packer was born and educated in Cheltenham, qualified in London and set up a country practice in Cressage in Shropshire. He was a medical visitor to the Salop Private Asylums and published articles on "the mind in sickness and in health" in the Lancet and the British Medical Journal.

He was married to the musician Edith Mary Rutter and the father of four children, the youngest being (Admiral Sir) Herbert Annesley Packer