Black performer-director-writer whose work ranges from primetime TV and film to theater and literature. Duke began his film acting career in Michael Schultz's boisterous comedy "Car Wash" (1976), shortly after he started writing for the TV series "Good Times". A prolific TV director with scores of primetime episodes to his credit, including "Knots Landing", "Falcon Crest," "Hill Street Blues", "Spenser: For Hire," "A Man Called Hawk," "City of Angels," "New York Undercover" and the miniseries "Miracle's Boys," he won acclaim for his award-winning PBS film "The Killing Floor" (1984), about WWI stockyard workers, and "The Meeting" (1989), about a hypothetical encounter between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Duke's first theatrical feature, "A Rage in Harlem" (1991), based on a Chester Himes crime novel, was selected as an official entry in competition at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. As an actor, he has turned in memorable performances as the villainous gay pimp in "American Gigolo" (1980), Arnold Schwarzenegger's comrade in "Commando" (1985) and "Predator" (1987), and the heavy in "Bird on a Wire" (1990). As his film credits--when not playing bad guys Duke specialized in menacing law enforcement agents--seemed to multiply exponentially, some of the more memorable films on his resume included "Menace II Society" (1993), "Payback" (1999), "The Limey" (1999), "Exit Wounds" (2001) and "Red Dragon" (2002). Duke also began reappearing on the small screen, playing Carla Gugino's colleague Amos Andrews in the critically beloved but short-lived ABC series "Karen Sisco" (2004) based on the Elmore Leonard character from the 1998 film "Out of Sight," and a recurring role as Capt. Bob Parish on the slick MTV-style NBC cop drama "Fastlane" (2002-2003), a series which he also directed. Duke got one of his larger roles as the drug kingpin Levar in director Jim Sheridan's urban drama "Get Rich Or Die Tryin'" (2005) based on the real life of star Curtis "50 Cent" Johnson.
- Also Credited As:
William Duke
- Born:
on 02/26/43 in Poughkeepsie, New York
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Job Titles:
Actor, Director, Screenwriter, Acting teacher, Producer, Teacher
Family
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Father: Bill Duke.
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Mother: Ethel Duke.
Education
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School of Fine Arts, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, theater, BFA, 1966
Milestones
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1969 Began acting career on New York stage in Le Roi Jones's "Slave Ship" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
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1970 Off-Broadway acting debut in Douglas Turner Ward's "Day of Absence" with the Negro Ensemble Company
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1971 Broadway acting debut in Melvin Van Pebbles' "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death"
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1972 Off-Broadway directing debut, "The Secret Place" by Garrett Morris
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1972 TV movie acting debut, "Santiago's Ark" for ABC Afterschool Specials
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1974 Began writing for TV series, "Good Times" (1973-79)
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1976 Feature film acting debut, "Car Wash"
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1979 Directed first short, "The Hero"
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1984 Directed "The Killing Floor", a feature (budgeted at $1.5 million) made as the pilot for a 10-part PBS series on the history of working people in America which was never realized; broadcast April 1984, a month after being completed; received first theatrical release March 1992
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1991 Directed first feature, "A Rage in Harlem"
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1993 Helmed "The Cemetery Club"
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1997 Was director of "Hoodlum", an under-appreciated film about period gangster flick; also served as an executive producer
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1998 Helmed a two-part story arc of the UPN drama "Legacy"
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1999 Played a corrupt Chicago detective in "Payback"
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2000 Directed "Golden Spiders", an A&E; TV-movie based on a Nero Wolfe mystery
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2001 Co-starred in "Exit Wounds"
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2003 Cast as Amos Andrews in "Karen Sisco" the NBC series based on Elmore Leonard's film "Out of Sight" which starred Jennifer Lopez
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2003 Cast in the feature comedy "National Security"
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2005 Cast in Jim Sheridan's urban drama "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," a film loosely based on the life of rapper 50 cent
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Directed "Blacktime, Whitenoise" (lensed 2002)
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Directed for TV series, "Knots Landing" (1979-91)
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Directed over 30 off-Broadway plays including "Unfinished Women..."(1977) at the New York Shakespeare Festival and "No Place to Be Somebody" revival at the Matrix Theater (1987)
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Helmed episodes of the CBS medical drama "City of Angels"
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Starred on Alex Haley's TV series, "Palmerstown, U.S.A" for two seasons as a fictional representative of Haley's father, a blacksmith