Charles Stanley Dutton (born January 30, 1951) is an American retired actor and director. 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 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).
Early life :
Dutton was born 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.
Prison convictions, discovering acting, and education :
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.[15] After his time at Towson, Dutton earned a master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama in 1983.
