Duke Haney interview with LA Review
DUKE HANEY LEFT his home state of Virginia for Hollywood as a very young man with hopes of becoming the next Marlon Brando. That didn’t exactly happen, but several other things did, including the writing of a novel, Banned for Life; a collection of essays, Subversia; and now a combination memoir and history of Hollywood, Death Valley Superstars: Occasionally Fatal Adventures in Filmland. Haney survived by writing scripts and acting in films. And survived is the word for it: he even lived through a near-fatal car accident, which left him hospitalized for months and — nearly as bad, by his telling — nude scenes in a Roger Corman movie.
Meticulously researched and endlessly engaging, Death Valley Superstars is tumbledown journey through Haney’s life in the film world of the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. We spoke recently on the phone and by email.