Multi-hyphenate Bill Duke will discuss building a successful branded career in Hollywood on the Monday, March 30th edition of "Inside Urban Hollywood" with host, Tanya Kersey at 6pm PST/9pm EST. Duke's widely respected talents span almost every film and television discipline, including directing, producing, acting and writing. 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 began directing feature-length films in the 1990s with crime dramas "A Rage in Harlem," Deep Cover" and "Hoodlum" starring Laurence Rishburne. He also directed "The Cemetery Club" and "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit," starring Whoopi Goldberg. He most recently directed and produced TD Jakes' "Not Easily Broken" starring Morris Chestnut and Academy Award nominee Taraji P. Henson. 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.
Duke founded Duke Media, formerly Yagya Productions, which has been in existence for approximately twenty years. For three years, Mr. Duke served as the Time Warner Endowed Chair in the Department of Radio Television and Film at Howard University in Washington, DC. He was then appointed to the National Endowment of the Humanities by former president Bill Clinton. Mr. Duke has also been appointed to the California State Film Commission Board by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mr. Duke now serves on the Board of Trustees at the American Film Institute.
Duke is now producing and directing independent projects and content for multiple platforms.