Уильям Генри Дюк: Американдық актер және режиссер өмірі мен мансабы

American actor and director

William Henry Duke Jr. (born February 26, 1943) is an American actor and film director. Known for his physically imposing frame, Duke works primarily in the action and crime drama genres often as a character related to law enforcement. Frequently a character actor, he has starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando and Predator, and has appeared in films like Car Wash, American Gigolo, No Man's Land, Bird on a Wire, Menace II Society, Exit Wounds, Payback, X Men: The Last Stand, and Mandy. In television, he is best known as Agent Percy Odell in Black Lightning. He has directed episodes of numerous television series including Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, The Twilight Zone, and American Playhouse. He has also directed the crime films Deep Cover and A Rage in Harlem, for which he was nominated for a Palme d'Or, as well as the comedy Sister Act 2.

Duke was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, 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 the performing arts and in creative writing at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie. With acting roles dried up, Duke next attended AFI Conservatory to study filmmaking.

Standing at an imposing 6 feet (2 m) and with a closely shaved head, Duke first became a familiar face to moviegoers in Car Wash (1976), where he portrayed fierce young Black Muslim revolutionary Abdullah Mohammed Akbar (formerly known as Duane). As the action film oriented genre became more popular, Duke portrayed a string of tough guys. He worked opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger with a small role in Commando. Then he acted alongside Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura in the scifi action thriller Predator, followed by a role as a police chief in the 1988 Carl Weathers vehicle Action Jackson. The line became often quoted. He played a corrupt law enforcement agent in two films opposite Mel Gibson—Bird on a Wire (as an FBI agent) and Payback (as a police detective). Duke appeared as Trask in X Men: The Last Stand, Washington in National Security, Levar in Get Rich or Die Tryin', Nokes in Bad Country and Caruthers in Mandy.