David Patrick Kelly
Encyclopedia
David Patrick Kelly is an American
actor and musician who has appeared in numerous films, including some major roles.
The Warriors, where he screeches the famous line, "Warriors...come out to play-ee-ay!!"; the line was improvised by Kelly himself. He also played a character named Luther in the 1982 hit film 48 Hrs.
His film credits include the 1985 hit action film Commando
, in which he played Sully. His other films include Crooklyn
, Hammett, Wild at Heart
, Dreamscape
, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
, Last Man Standing
, Songcatcher
, The Crow
, K-PAX
, The Longest Yard
, Flags of Our Fathers
, and the video game "Ripper".
David Lynch
created the role Jerry Horne on Twin Peaks
for him; his many television guest appearances include Miami Vice
, Moonlighting
, Spenser: For Hire
, Ghostwriter
, Third Watch
, Hack, Kidnapped
, Law & Order
, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
, Law & Order: SVU, Gossip Girl
, and Louie
.
Onstage Kelly has frequently appeared at the Hartford Stage Company
in Hartford, Connecticut
starring in the title roles in Woyzeck
and Tartuffe
, playing Iago
in Othello
and Hoss in Sam Shepard
's Tooth Of Crime. At the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts
, he played the title role in Pirandello's Enrico IV
and starred in an adaption of the Yuan Dynasty
Chinese classic Snow In June. On Broadway he played Feste
in the Lincoln Center production of Twelfth Night. He appeared in four plays by avant garde master Richard Foreman
: Pearls For Pigs, The Mind King, Film Is Evil/Radio Is Good, and The Cure. In 1998 he received an Obie Award
for Sustained Excellence.
As a composer and musician he participated in New York's rock and cabaret scene playing such legendary venues as Max's Kansas City
, Reno Sweeney's, CBGB
, and The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club.
In May 2008, he released a CD of his original music entitled David Patrick Kelly : Rip Van Boy Man, containing new songs and live recordings from his club days in 1975.
, the son of Margaret and Robert Corby Kelly, a painter and art instructor who retired as an accountant for the Avon Tubing Company.
He received a BFA Cum Laude from the University of Detroit and was a student of Mira Rostova
and Marcel Marceau
.
Kelly married theater actress/writer Juliana Francis
on August 14, 2005.
He is an avid martial artist
, with a Second Degree Black Belt (Nidan Rank) in Seido
Karate
and a practitioner of three forms of T'ai chi (Chen, Yang, Palm).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor and musician who has appeared in numerous films, including some major roles.
Career
Kelly is well-known for playing Luther in the 1979 cult filmCult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
The Warriors, where he screeches the famous line, "Warriors...come out to play-ee-ay!!"; the line was improvised by Kelly himself. He also played a character named Luther in the 1982 hit film 48 Hrs.
48 Hrs.
48 Hrs. is a 1982 American action comedy film directed by Walter Hill, starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy as a cop and convict, respectively, who team up to catch a cop-killer. The title refers to the amount of time they have to solve the crime. This was Eddie Murphy's film debut , and Joel...
His film credits include the 1985 hit action film Commando
Commando (film)
Commando is a 1985 American action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vernon Wells, Rae Dawn Chong, Alyssa Milano, Bill Duke, Dan Hedaya and James Olson. It was directed by Mark L...
, in which he played Sully. His other films include Crooklyn
Crooklyn
Crooklyn is a 1994 semi-autobiographical film co-written and directed by Spike Lee. The film takes place in Brooklyn, New York and the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant during the summer of 1973. Its primary focus is a young girl, Troy , and her family...
, Hammett, Wild at Heart
Wild at Heart (film)
Wild at Heart is a 1990 American film written and directed by David Lynch, and based on Barry Gifford's 1989 novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula. Both the book and the film revolve around Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune , a young couple from Cape Fear, North Carolina who go on...
, Dreamscape
Dreamscape (film)
Dreamscape is a 1984 science fiction horror film directed by Joseph Ruben and written by David Loughery, with Chuck Russell and Ruben co-writing...
, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is a 1990 American action/comedy film starring comedian Andrew Dice Clay as Ford Fairlane, a "Rock n' Roll Detective," whose beat is the music industry in Los Angeles. The film was directed by Renny Harlin.-Plot:...
, Last Man Standing
Last Man Standing (film)
Last Man Standing is a 1996 action film written and directed by Walter Hill, starring Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, and Bruce Dern. It is a credited remake of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo.- Plot :...
, Songcatcher
Songcatcher
The film's score was written by David Mansfield, who also assembled a roster of female country music artists to perform mostly traditional mountain ballads. Some of the songs are contemporary arrangements, and some are played in the traditional Appalachian music style. The artists include Rosanne...
, The Crow
The Crow (film)
The Crow is a 1994 American action film based on the 1989 comic book of the same name by James O'Barr. The film was written by David J. Schow and John Shirley, and directed by Alex Proyas...
, K-PAX
K-PAX (film)
K-PAX is a 2001 American science fiction and mystery film directed by Iain Softley and starring Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack and Alfre Woodard. The screenplay, written by Gene Brewer and Charles Leavitt, is based on a novel of the same name by Brewer about a psychiatric patient who...
, The Longest Yard
The Longest Yard (2005 film)
The Longest Yard is a 2005 American sports comedy film remake of the 1974 film of the same name. Adam Sandler plays the protagonist, Paul Crewe, a disgraced former professional football quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL, who is coerced to form a team from the prison inmates to play...
, Flags of Our Fathers
Flags of Our Fathers (film)
is a 2006 American war film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who were involved...
, and the video game "Ripper".
David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
created the role Jerry Horne on Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
for him; his many television guest appearances include Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
, Moonlighting
Moonlighting (TV series)
Moonlighting is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 66 episodes...
, Spenser: For Hire
Spenser: For Hire
Spenser: For Hire is a mystery television series based on Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels. The series, developed for TV by John Wilder, differs from the novels, mostly in its lesser degree of detail....
, Ghostwriter
Ghostwriter (TV series)
Ghostwriter is an American television program created by Liz Nelson and produced by the Children's Television Workshop and BBC One. It began airing on PBS on October 4, 1992, and the final episode aired on February 13, 1995...
, Third Watch
Third Watch
Third Watch is an American television drama series which first aired on NBC from 1999 to 2005 for a total of 132 episodes, broadcast in 6 seasons of 22 episodes each....
, Hack, Kidnapped
Kidnapped (TV series)
Kidnapped is an American television drama series from Sony Pictures Television which aired on NBC from September 20, 2006, to August 11, 2007...
, Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...
, Law & Order: SVU, Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl is an American young adult novel series written by Cecily von Ziegesar and published by Little, Brown and Company, a subsidiary of the Hachette Group. The series revolves around the lives and romances of the privileged teenagers at the Constance Billard School for Girls, an elite...
, and Louie
Louie (TV series)
Louie is an American comedy television series on the FX network that began airing in 2010. It is written, directed, edited and produced by the show's creator, stand-up comedian Louis C.K., who stars as a fictionalized version of himself, a comedian and newly divorced father raising his two...
.
Onstage Kelly has frequently appeared at the Hartford Stage Company
Hartford Stage
Hartford Stage, located in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works...
in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
starring in the title roles in Woyzeck
Woyzeck
Woyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. He left the work incomplete at his death, but it has been variously and posthumously "finished" by a variety of authors, editors and translators. Woyzeck has become one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theatre...
and Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
, playing Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
and Hoss in Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
's Tooth Of Crime. At the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, he played the title role in Pirandello's Enrico IV
Enrico IV
Henry IV is a play by Luigi Pirandello. A study on madness with comic and tragic sides, it has been translated into English by Tom Stoppard and others...
and starred in an adaption of the Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
Chinese classic Snow In June. On Broadway he played Feste
Feste
Feste is a jester in the Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night or: What You Will. He is attached to the household of the Countess Olivia. Apparently he has been there for some time, as he was a "fool that the Lady Olivia's father took much delight in"...
in the Lincoln Center production of Twelfth Night. He appeared in four plays by avant garde master Richard Foreman
Richard Foreman
Richard Foreman is an American playwright and avant-garde theater pioneer. He is the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.-Life :...
: Pearls For Pigs, The Mind King, Film Is Evil/Radio Is Good, and The Cure. In 1998 he received an Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
for Sustained Excellence.
As a composer and musician he participated in New York's rock and cabaret scene playing such legendary venues as Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South, in New York City, which was a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Origin of name:...
, Reno Sweeney's, CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
, and The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club.
In May 2008, he released a CD of his original music entitled David Patrick Kelly : Rip Van Boy Man, containing new songs and live recordings from his club days in 1975.
Personal life
Kelly, one of seven children, was born in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, the son of Margaret and Robert Corby Kelly, a painter and art instructor who retired as an accountant for the Avon Tubing Company.
He received a BFA Cum Laude from the University of Detroit and was a student of Mira Rostova
Mira Rostova
Mira Rostova was a Russian-born American acting teacher, best known for her own variation of method acting that she used in coaching of Montgomery Clift...
and Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.-Early years:...
.
Kelly married theater actress/writer Juliana Francis
Juliana Francis
Juliana Francis, also known as Julianna Francis or Juliana Francis-Kelly, is an American playwright and actress. She is the recipient of an Obie Award for her performance in Richard Foreman's Maria Del Bosco, and a Dramalogue Award for Reza Abdoh's The Hip-hop Waltz of Eurydice...
on August 14, 2005.
He is an avid martial artist
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
, with a Second Degree Black Belt (Nidan Rank) in Seido
Seidō
Seidō, Seido can mean:* Seidō juku, a form of traditional Japanese Karate founded by Tadashi Nakamura.* Seidokaikan, another form of Full contact Karate.* Kyushu Seido-kai, a yakuza organization based in Kyushu...
Karate
Karate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
and a practitioner of three forms of T'ai chi (Chen, Yang, Palm).