Charles S. Dutton

Charles Stanley Dutton (born January 30, 1951) is a retired American actor and director.

Charles Stanley Dutton was born on January 30, 1951, on the east side of Baltimore, Maryland.

His father was a truck driver and his parents divorced when he was four.

He grew up in Baltimore's Latrobe Homes public housing project.

In his youth, Dutton dropped out of school before finishing middle school.

He had a short-lived stint as an amateur boxer with the nickname "Roc", a nickname derived from "Rockhead", due to rock throwing battles which took place during Dutton's childhood.

In 1967, when he was 16, Dutton got into a fight that resulted in the death of a man Dutton claimed had attacked him with a knife.

After the knife fight, Dutton pleaded guilty in 1967 to manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in prison, which he began serving at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup, Maryland.

Out on parole after 18 or 20 months, he was arrested on robbery and handgun charges.

He was sentenced on the handgun violation and sent to the Maryland Penitentiary, near his boyhood home, for three more years.

A fight with a guard added on another eight years.

In reference to this, Dutton later said, "I got three years for killing a black man and eight for punching a white man."

During his prison term, Dutton was stabbed by another prisoner and nearly died.

He became interested in radical movements and the Black Panther Party.

Several months into his second prison term, Dutton was sentenced to six days of solitary confinement for refusing to clean toilets.

Prisoners were allowed to take one book and, unintentionally, he grabbed an anthology of black playwrights.

He enjoyed the book so much that upon release from solitary, he petitioned the warden to start a drama group for the winter talent show.

The warden agreed on the condition that Dutton go back to school and get his GED.

Dutton accomplished that and eventually completed a two-year college program at Hagerstown Junior College (now Hagerstown Community College) in Hagerstown, Maryland, graduating with an Associate of Arts degree in 1976.

Dutton was paroled on August 20, 1976.

After his release from prison, he enrolled as a drama major at Towson State University (now Towson University) in the Baltimore suburb of Towson, Maryland, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978.

After his time at Towson, Dutton earned a master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama in 1983.

In 1984, Dutton made his Broadway debut in August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, winning a Theatre World Award and a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor.

In 1988, Dutton played Leroy Brown in Crocodile Dundee II and a killer in the television miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan opposite Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey.

In 1990, Dutton earned a second Best Actor Tony nomination for his role in another Wilson play, The Piano Lesson.

He is best known for his roles in the television series Roc (1991–1994) and the television film The Piano Lesson (1995), the latter of which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.

His other accolades include three Primetime Emmy Awards and three NAACP Image Awards.

Dutton gained acclaim for his comedy show Roc shown on FOX television (but produced by HBO) from 1991 to 1994.

His work in this role won him an NAACP Image Award.

Dutton has also appeared in many feature films such as Alien 3 (1992), Rudy (1993), Menace II Society (1993), A Time to Kill (1996), Cookie's Fortune (1999), and Gothika (2003).

Dutton co-starred in Alien 3, the debut film of director David Fincher, then co-starred in 1993's Rudy.

Other films he has appeared in include Get on the Bus; A Time to Kill; Cookie's Fortune; Cry, the Beloved Country; Surviving the Game; Menace II Society; Secret Window; and A Low Down Dirty Shame.

It was adapted from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (Broadway Books, 1997) by David Simon (a reporter for the Baltimore Sun) and Ed Burns (a retired Baltimore homicide detective).

He was previously nominated in 1999 for his guest-starring role as Alvah Case in the HBO prison drama Oz in its second-season premiere episode.

For this role, he was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Also in 1999, he starred in an ensemble cast in Aftershock: Earthquake in New York in which he played the Mayor of New York City.

In 2000, Dutton directed the HBO miniseries The Corner.

The miniseries was close to his heart, for Dutton grew up on the streets of East Baltimore.

Dutton won Outstanding Guest Actor Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003 for his roles in The Practice and Without a Trace.

He co-starred in the popular but short-lived 2005 CBS science fiction series, Threshold.