David Dukes

American actor David Dukes has distinguished himself in all branches of the performing arts, but it is television that has gained him the widest and most appreciative audience. After an indifferent film bow in 1975's The Wild Party, Dukes portrayed the crippled war-vet son of a wealthy Bostonian household in Beacon Hill, a CBS prime-time series intended as America's "answer" to Upstairs Downstairs. Though the critics were brutal to Beacon Hill, they generally qualified their vitriol with words of praise for Dukes. Thereafter, the actor avoided regular series work, preferring the miniseries or two-hour theatrical special. Dukes appeared in such multipart TV efforts as The Winds of War (1983), George Washington (1984) and James Michener's Space (1985). One-shot television specials starring Dukes include Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985), in which he played Brother Man, and the PBS production of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (1988). The most publicity attending a David Dukes appearance was for his guest shot on a 1978 episode of All in the Family, in which he played the would-be rapist of Edith Bunker!