Don't miss this exciting and up-beat interview!
Bill Miller is considered an international authority
on the subject of ocean liners & cruise ships. This includes those great ships of the past, those "floating palaces,"
as well as the current generation of cruise ships, the "floating resorts". Called "Mr. Ocean Liner," he has written over 70
books on the subject: from early steamers, immigrant ships and liners at war to other titles on their fabulous interiors,
in post card form and about the highly collectible artifacts from them. He has done specific histories of such celebrated
passenger ships as the United States, Queen Mary, Rotterdam, France, Queen Elizabeth 2, Costa Victoria, Super Star Leo
and Crystal Serenity.
In all, he has also written over 1,000 articles for newspapers,
magazines and nautical journals & newsletters. He even has his very own ocean liner quarterly, the Millergram.
He has made nearly 300 voyages to date: Atlantic crossings, tropical cruises, coastal runs and even trips on container cargo
ships and exotic banana boats. He has appeared in some three dozen video & television series, both in the USA, Britain,
Europe and Australia, including Castles of the Sea, The Floating Palaces, The Superliners, Inside the World of a Cruise
Ship, Disasters at Sea and Deco: Age of Glamor. He has also appeared on The Today Show, CBS Evening News,
CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America and many other news broadcasts. He has been guest lecturer aboard over
50 different liners, sailing with the likes of Crystal Cruises, Cunard, Carnival, Holland America, Princess, Radisson-Seven
Seas, Saga Cruises and others. Miller was a public school teacher, in middle school and for social studies, for 32 years.
He was named "Teacher of the Year" in 2002.
A native of Hoboken, New Jersey, the once busy port just across the
Hudson River from New York City, Miller was named Outstanding American Maritime Scholar in 1994, received the United States
Maritime Preservation Award and also the Ocean Liner Council’s Silver Riband Award, both in 2004. Also, he has been
chairman of the Port of New York Branch of the World Ship Society, serves on the selection committee for the American Maritime
Hall of Fame, created the passenger ship database for the Ellis Island Museum and currently serves as Adjunct Curator of Ocean
Liner Studies at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport Museum. He has also organized a 14-week college course on liners,
helped to create & then served as historian at the US Merchant Marine Museum and has written commissioning books for three
brand new cruise ships. His private collection includes 4,000 books on ships, over 15,000 photos and some 900 miniature ship
models, most of them being passenger ships. In early 2006, Miller had four new books, all of them about liners, in the works
and has been guest lecturer aboard the brand new Queen Mary 2, the largest liner yet built, on no less than 15 voyages.
(Updated January 2006)
