BEST OF TASTY CLIPS: Walk of Famer Bill Duke reflects on his directorial debut
By Bill Vaughan
Entertainment Writer
BILL DUKE, the actor best known for significant roles in the 1976 classic “Car Wash” and “American Gigolo” recently celebrated his 83rd birthday with the gift of a much-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He last joined TASTY CLIPS in 2020 to discuss his 1989 movie directorial debut “The Killing Floor” now considered “an essential piece of Black labor and cinematic history.”
“In my opinion, it reflects the many struggles that we have gone through to create a great union,” he said of the gripping fact-based story starring Damien Leake, Alfre Woodard, Moses Gunn, Clarence Felder, Dennis Farina, Stephen McKinley Henderson and the luminous Mary Alice set in the backdrop of a racially tense 1919 Chicago meat packing plant.
“I had never been in a slaughterhouse in my life,” Duke recalled of scouting the location used. “They had pigs upside down by their feet on the assembly line and they would cut them open and we’d see their guts and everything. Then we saw them skin the cows and chop them up into pieces. Steaks and ribs. Um. I’m a vegan now. It taught me a lot, brother!”
He says there is no need for a “Director’s Cut” due to the fact he had a lot of basic freedom but did remember fondly a piece of history that happened while shooting:
“We [finished] filming, going back to our places one day and hundreds and hundreds of people were running down the street screaming and yelling because Harold Washington became the first Black man to be mayor of Chicago. Everybody celebrated. It was an incredible moment.”
It took six years for Duke to helm his next feature film, the acclaimed “A Rage In Harlem,” which begat a string of motion picture gold with “Deep Cover,” “Sister Act 2,” “Hoodlum” starring Laurence Fishburne as Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, and the documentary “Dark Girls.”
“As a Black director at that time, you weren’t just given chances,” he reflected. “[‘The Killing Floor’] set the ground for it, but you had to prove yourself over and over in those days. It took some time, but I was acting in between.”
And throughout with many memorable roles including the Arnold Schwarzenegger actioners “Commando” and “Predator;” the groundbreaking “Menace II Society;” and the Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson biopic “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.”
For several years, Duke was a regular on the CW’s “Black Lightning” and was seeking funding and distribution for a biopic based on the relationship of boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling — onetime foes and faces of opposing countries in the 1930s who later became the best of friends.
As for who he would like in the roles, Duke admitted that there are several talented people he has in mind. It’s just not as easy as that these days.
“They’ll ask what actor do you want in the film,” he said. “You say X and then you’re asked what is his social media following. (laughs) That’s the reality, my friend.”
For more than 11 years, Bill Vaughan has kept Wave readers up to date with the latest news in entertainment. Now, we are collecting some of those past columns into what we call the Best of Tasty Clips. To contact Vaughan, visit his social media pages on Facebook and Instagram or @tasty_clips, on X @tastyclips, and on LinkedIn to William Vaughan.
