Biografia
Born in the back of a Chevy station wagon driven by his late father on a starry September night, Danny entered the world on a desolate West Texas highway as they searched for a town with a hospital for his mother to give birth. When none was found, his father took charge—just as he had during four years of World War II in the Pacific Theater—and Danny was delivered while his mother held a flashlight for his father to see. From that moment, Danny has often been in the spotlight. By age five, he knew he wanted to be a movie actor. Starting at seven, his mother sent him every Saturday morning on a Continental Trailways bus, driven by "Red," from their small South Central Texas town to Houston to study under Jeannine Wagner, a future national authority in children's theater who taught at the renowned Alley Theater. Theater shaped his life until college graduation. At ten, inspired by James Cagney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), he aimed to become a character actor. Supported by his fifth-grade teacher, he was accepted as the youngest student ever at Southwest Texas University's summer theater program, attending for six consecutive summers. At 16, he directed William Saroyan's "Hello Out There" there, alongside graduate students and high school drama teachers from across Texas. Throughout high school, he excelled in speech and theater, winning many local, regional, and state awards in public speaking, debate, and acting. As a junior, the University of Texas theater department scouted him and offered a full drama scholarship, but he chose Trinity University in San Antonio to study under the famed Paul Baker, eventually graduating from Emerson College in Boston.
Danny did not act in film or television until after graduating law school and establishing a career as a felony prosecutor in Corpus Christi, Texas, later serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and entering private practice in Houston. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he pioneered federal criminal prosecutions against film piracy in the Fifth Circuit, collaborated with Congress to elevate copyright infringement penalties from misdemeanor to felony, originated the anti-piracy warning seen on all commercial videotapes and DVDs, and tried the landmark case United States v. Ralph Smith, securing federal prison time for the defendant. These accomplishments earned him the U.S. Department of Justice’s John Marshall Award. His film piracy case was featured in a "60 Minutes" segment titled "Who Stole Superman." A brief biography covering his legal career, including his service as an immigration judge in Atlanta, Georgia, appears in the 1985/1986 edition of "Who's Who in American Law."
Motivated by the realization of life's brevity following his father's death at 61, Danny returned to theater to pursue his lifelong dream. This led to a co-starring role in his first television movie, The Return of Desperado (1988), alongside Robert Foxworth and Billy Dee Williams, aired on NBC. He continues to reside in Houston, Texas, working throughout North America and Canada, while maintaining an international profile as an award-winning, published still photographer. He received the Kodak International Photography Award for black-and-white work and was named Texas Photographer of the Year by Texas Tech University. His photography appears in numerous books and magazines. In 2009, he launched "Operation Grateful," a project providing free family portraits to military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007, he founded Carolyn's Hope, a nonprofit honoring his late mother, dedicated to educating the public and law enforcement about domestic elder abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation of vulnerable seniors. His most recent stage work was in 2008 at the Falcon Theater in Burbank, California, starring alongside Ed Asner, Paula Prentiss, and Laine Kazan in "A Step Out of Time," directed by Richard Benjamin. Danny currently practices criminal defense law in Houston, specializing in representing juveniles charged with criminal offenses.
