Billingsley's first acting role was when he was 2 in a 1973
Geritol commercial. He went on to star in about 120 television advertisements throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. At 12 he was quoted as saying, "After 100 [commercials], you lose count." He was best known for a series of commercials for
Hershey's chocolate syrup in which he portrayed the character Messy Marvin. One of Billingsley's earliest film roles was in 1978's
If Ever I See You Again, written and directed by
Joseph Brooks. In 1981, he appeared in
Honky Tonk Freeway. In 1982, Billingsley starred in several features, including
Death Valley,
Massarati and the Brain, and the made-for-TV movie
Memories Never Die with
Lindsay Wagner and his sister, Melissa. He had a featured guest role as Gideon Hale on
Little House on the Prairie, began a three-year stint as a co-host on NBC's popular
Real People (for which he earned another Young Artist Award nomination), The film earned Billingsley another Young Artist Award nomination, and is arguably the one role with which he is most associated. He has been quoted as saying that people still approach him on the street, only to say "you'll shoot your eye out, kid!" In 1984, Billingsley starred in an adaptation of
The Hoboken Chicken Emergency with
Dick Van Patten and
Gabe Kaplan, a special
Thanksgiving episode of the
PBS series
WonderWorks. He appeared on a "Super Teen" special edition of
Family Feud, and on
Celebrity Hot Potato. As the late 1980s approached, Billingsley's acting career slowed. He made guest appearances on ''
Who's the Boss?, Punky Brewster, The Wonder Years, and Highway to Heaven. He appeared in The Dirt Bike Kid (for which he won a Young Artist Award), His next Schoolbreak Special appearance was in The Writing on the Wall'' (1994), starring
Hal Linden as a rabbi who teaches three boys about the horrors of intolerance after they are caught defacing his home, temple, and car with
swastikas and
antisemitic graffiti. Billingsley was nominated for an
Emmy Award for the role.
Other work The most notable of his later film acting assignments was
Arcade (1993), in which he starred as a teenage "
virtual reality" addict; he worked as the post-production supervisor, credited as Peter Michaelsen. He began working behind the scenes more often. Known as Peter Michaelsen, he was assistant editor on
Knights, a film which featured
Kris Kristofferson. In 1994, he starred in, wrote, and directed (credited as Peter Billingsley) the short film
The Sacred Fire, and credited as Peter Michaelsen as the executive producer. The film won an
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films' Golden Scroll Award. Billingsley served as executive producer on director Favreau's
Iron Man feature film; he also acted in the film playing William Ginter Riva, a scientist who works for
Obadiah Stane; he reprised the role later in 2019 in the film
Spider-Man: Far From Home. Billingsley, Favreau, and Vaughn appeared in
Four Christmases (2008).
Couples Retreat (2009) starring Favreau and Vaughn was Billingsley's first major film as director and was followed by his second directorial effort
Term Life, which also starred Vaughn. He took an acting part in an experimental film for the new
Maxivision 48 projection system which was developed by Dean Goodhill. Billingsley released a CD titled
Christmas Stories...Christmas Songs on Run For Cover Records in 1999 with longtime friend Brian Evans. He signed on as executive producer of a musical adaptation of
A Christmas Story that opened in
Seattle in December 2010. He said he was "honored to be a part of this project and looks forward to bringing the play to more stages... Just think about the idea of a leg-lamp kickline." He served as a co-producer of the musical adaption of
A Christmas Story when it hit Broadway in 2012. "The idea of a musical was very, very inspiring to me because it's really an extension of the story," Billingsley said in a November 2012
Playbill interview. ==Personal life==