Bill Duke
Bill Duke was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States on February 26th, 1943 and is the Movie Actor. At the age of 81, Bill Duke biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, movies, TV shows, and networth are available.
At 81 years old, Bill Duke has this physical status:
William Henry Duke, Jr. (born February 26, 1943) is an American actor, producer, and writer of film and television.
Duke works primarily in action and crime drama, but he does occasionally appear in comedy.
Frequently a character actor, he has appeared in films such as American Gigolo, No Man's Land, Bird on a Wire, Menace II Society, Exit Wounds, Payback, and The Last Stand and Mandy. He has produced episodes of numerous television series, including Cagney & Lacey, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, The Twilight Zone, and American Playhouse, as a director, as well as Harlem's crime film Deep Cover and A Rage, for which he has been nominated for a Palme d'Or.
He was the producer of the film Sister Act II, which starred Whoopi Goldberg and Lauryn Hill.
He produced episodes of several of the 1980s television series, including Hill Street Blues and Vice Vice.
Early life and education
Duke was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the son of Ethel Louise (née Douglas) and William Henry Duke Sr. He attended Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Hyde Park and later received his first instruction in performing arts and creative writing at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie. Duke worked menial jobs 7 days a week to pay for his living expenses and planned to postpone his education until Duke's Dr. James Hall, a DCC Dean, gave Duke a personal check to pay for his next three years at Boston University, where (Duke) had won an academic-based scholarship with the intention of attending medical school after graduation to please his parents. "My room smelled like formaldehyde." After completing his B.A., he moved to English Education and later instruction in dance and drama.
Duke studied at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He pan-handled, as well as store-lifted groceries, who was unable to find sufficiently acting people. He did not appear on Broadway in the 1971 Melvin Van Peebles musical Ain't About a Natural Death. Duke next attended AFI Conservatory to learn filmmaking, as acting roles were defunct.
Personal life
Duke resides in Los Angeles as of 2018.
Duke is an honorary member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity.
Career
Duke first appeared in Car Wash (1976), where he portrayed ardent Black Muslim revolutionary Abdullah Mohammed Akbar (formerly known as Duane) in an imposing 6 foot 4+1.12 inches (1.94 m) and with a closely shaven head. He widened his repertoire with American Gigolo (1980), where he co-orchestrates a murder and pinned on actor Richard Gere.
Duke portrayed a string of jerks as the action-oriented genre became more popular. He appeared in Commando opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger for a brief period of time. In the 1988 Carl Weathers vehicle Action Jackson, then starred Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, and Jesse Ventura. Duke was uncredited as a DEA officer in The Limey (1999), as well as a police chief opposite Steven Seagal in Exit Wounds. In Menace II Society (1993), he coerced the lead character into questioning himself in an interrogation and then tries to sway him by repeating the phrase: "You did fucked up, don't you?" The line was often quoted. In two films opposite Mel Gibson—Bird on a Wire (as an FBI agent) and Payback (as a police detective), he appeared as a corrupt law enforcement agent. In X-Men: Duke was Trask in the Last Stand, Washington, Levar in Get Rich or Die Tryin', Nokes in Bad Country and Caruthers in Mandy.
Due to a misadequate or clerical mistake at AFI Conservatory, Duke mistakenly secured a direct job on Knots Landing in the early 1980s. However, the designers were happy with his work, and he was kept on, eventually directing ten episodes of the show. This made him one of the first four black television directors. Knots Landing's mother show Dallas and its sister show Falcon Crest (6 episodes) were shot by Duke. Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and Starman were among the next to take action. Larry Hagman and Jane Wyman's early TV directing success, but he does recall occasional derogatory or racial slurs from crew members, including the Teamsters.
In 1984, Duke produced The Killing Floor, a television film. With crime dramas A Rage in Harlem (1991), Deep Cover (1992) and Hoodlum (1997), he began directing theatre films in the 1990s. He also produced The Cemetery Club (1993) and the Whoopi Goldberg comedy sequel "Back in the Habit (1993).
Duke produced The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystere (2000), a television show. In 2007, he supervised the historical reenactments in the award-winning PBS-broadcast series Prince Among Slaves.
In 2007, Duke collaborated with screenwriter Bayard Johnson to co-produce Cover, a 2007 film that examines the HIV epidemic.
He is supposed to direct The Power of One: The Diane Latiker Story, a film based on Chicago activist Diane Latiker.
In the third season of the series, Duke appeared on Kojak in 1976 as Sylk. In the episode "Every Man for Himself," Warden Harris appeared in the fourth episode of Lost in its third season as Warden Harris.
Duke appeared in the short-lived TV series Palmerstown, United States. A.A., produced by Norman Lear and Roots author Alex Haley. Despite the fact that the series was critically acclaimed and gained an Emmy, it was only in 1980-81 television episodes that it was running.
In 2004, the season two episode "Black Market" appeared in him guest-starred in a Battlestar Galactica remake.
Capt. Duke was portrayed as a recurring character. Fastlane is a television show/crime drama starring parishes. In the 2008 episode "Street Money," Grover Boone, a corrupt politician, appeared on Baisden After Dark and guest-starred on Cold Case as a corrupt politician. In the episode "Thank You for Not Snitching" of the animated television series The Boondocks, Duke played a detective. Menace II Society was referenced to the character and his entire scene. In Busta Rhymes' music video "Dangerous," the Duke appears. Duke also appears in a case of Law & Order: SVU as a lawyer. Duke appeared on episode 6 of the Outdoor Channel's first season of Hollywood Weapons: Fact or Fiction? Duke spoke with host Terry Schappert about his time filming Predator, his character Sgt. Mac Elliot, and what it was like to fire an M134 Minigun.
In 2018, Duke appeared in the second season of The CW superhero drama series Black Lightning as a recurring character, Agent Percy Odell, a dedicated A.S.A. A government official is given the opportunity to address the problem.
He has served on the Board of trustees of the American Film Institute, as a member of Governor Schwarzenegger's appointment in the Time Warner Endowed Chair in the Department of Radio Television and Film at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and as a member of the National Endowment for Humanities, naming him by President Bill Clinton.
In 2011, he produced the documentary Dark Girls, which was nominated for an NAACP Award, and Light Girls, 2015.
Duke is also the founder and owner of the Duke Media Foundation, which helps young people prepare for careers in film, video, and television production. Under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's tutee, Duke became a Transcendental Meditation teacher in Ethiopia in 1973.