He’s played hard men in 400 films and TV shows – and has been in prison himself. But in his most surprising move yet, now in his 80s actor Danny Trejo reveals an unlikely hobby
Famously playing tough guys in around 400 films and TV shows, Danny Trejo is also passionate about history. The ex-con-turned actor, who once faced the death penalty for striking a prison officer with a rock during a riot in a tough California jail, says: “I love history. It was the only subject I ever got a good grade in at school. History helps you understand more about the past, the present and also the future. In the present, you can get caught up in whatever you’re going through. When you start reading history, it’s amazing to see what problems people in the past had to endure. It takes you away from what’s going on with you at that particular moment.”
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Best known for playing characters like knife-wielding henchman Navajas in Desperado alongside Antonio Banderas and Mexican cartel crook Tortuga in Breaking Bad, Danny also played Isador “Machete” Cortex, the ‘badass’ freedom fighter in the Spy Kids and Machete films. But, when his agent told him about the presenting role for Sky HISTORY’s Mysteries Unearthed, his reaction was: “Awesome, let’s do it!” The series examines the often fascinating stories behind buried artefacts and lost civilisations. He says: “It was just a no brainer to say yes.”
Now 81, Danny’s Sky HISTORY role doesn’t require the same ‘lived experience’ he has drawn on for many of his movie and TV parts. Married and divorced four times, father-of-three Danny – whose son Gilbert Trejo is an actor and director – has played 41 bad guys in all and been killed off more than any other actor. A clause in his contract requires his characters to die on screen as a warning to youngsters that crime doesn’t pay. He says, wryly: “There’s also another reason. I realised that the faster you die in a movie, the more movies you could make!”
Born in Echo Park, Los Angeles, to Alice Rivera and construction worker Dan Trejo, Danny started using drugs aged 13 and was in and out of jail for 11 years. Serving time for crimes including armed robbery, drug dealing and assault and battery, he faced the death penalty for hitting a guard with a rock during a riot at California’s Soledad State Prison in 1968. Placed in solitary confinement, he made a deal with God, pledging to turn his life around if he survived. Luckily, the charges were dropped, due to lack of witnesses, and he ditched drugs and booze.
Danny, who still attends AA meetings, says: “I was more scared than I’d ever been. Sitting in a cell looking at the death penalty, you can see the grim reaper next to you, laughing.” Released in 1969, he volunteered at rehab clinics and helped other addicts to get clean. This led to him stumbling into an acting career, when supporting an addict took him on to the set of action movie Runaway Train.
The director offered him an extra role, asking if he could play a convict and, a lightweight and welterweight boxing champ while in San Quentin prison, Danny – who sports a distinctive tattoo on his chest of a woman in a sombrero – soon became a Hollywood favourite playing villains and tough guys.
He jokes: “I remember when we did Heat, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer, they needed to know how it felt walking into a bank with a gun. Michael Mann, he looks at me and says, ‘okay, Danny, you’ve already done the training.’” But Danny is now happy to be making a very different kind of show. He says of Mysteries Unearthed: “This is about people who are digging in their backyard. One guy was renovating a church and he found some old stained-glass windows. He bought them from the church, took them home, cleaned them up, and found out they were some of Tiffany’s first works. So he started his own religion!”
He recalls another story about a man who found a baseball bat that once belonged to Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball, saying: “That was so close to my heart! A guy goes to a garage sale and he finds a bat. He buys it and starts cleaning it up. He soon realises it’s Jackie Robinson’s bat and goes through its remarkable history. Then he donates it to Jackie’s family. That was such a lovely thing to do because it was worth a quarter of a million dollars.”
Commenting on another story, he continues: “A man buys a house for $10,000 and he starts renovating. In the 1930s and 40s, they used to insulate the walls with newspaper. So, this man breaks into this wall in his house, and he finds this comic book rolled up in a newspaper. It’s the first edition of Superman from 1938, and it’s worth 70 times what the house is worth. Just amazing!”
Danny was also tickled by the amazing discovery of the Star Wars Death Star in an office. He says: “Finding something from Star Wars is the Holy Grail. It was an iconic film, and the director George Lucas was just unbelievable. But Lucas’s office wouldn’t even talk to the guy who had unearthed the Death Star the first three times he called. When they finally realised what this guy really had, the office told him, ‘we’ll give you George Lucas’s signed autograph in exchange for the Death Star.’ But the guy just said, ‘no way! I’ll get a couple of million dollars for that!’ The really funny thing was the Death Star was being used as a waste paper basket in an office!”
He also recalls a piece of movie history, saying: “I love the story of John Wayne discovering a World War Two tank on a movie set in the UK. Wayne wanted to buy it, but you guys [the British] didn’t want to sell it. You said, ‘we’ve got to keep our tanks for ourselves!’”
The point of the show, according to Danny, is to show ordinary people that they could find something extraordinary under their noses. He says: “You’re digging in your backyard and you end up finding half a dinosaur. After watching Mysteries Unearthed, I know people are going to start looking through their attics and their closets. In my house, we’ve all been going through our desks. We also started looking through stuff in the garage, and what we found were the blueprints for the first version of the game cornhole. That’s where you have to toss bean bags into a hole. That was astonishing.”
But fans who fear Danny’s sojourn into presenting history shows may mean he is slowing down ready for retirement need not worry. He says: “Absolutely not. I don’t want to slow down. I love my work just as much as ever. I’ve got a string of restaurants going right now, and a donut shop. I even have a restaurant right there in London on Portobello Road. It’s called Trejo’s Tacos. Tell them I sent you!”
And he has a way to go before he catches up with his fellow Sky HISTORY presenter, William Shatner, who found fame playing Captain Kirk on Star Trek and who presents The UnXplained documentary series at the age of 94. Danny says: “I adore him. I would call him a friend of mine. On Star Trek, Kirk used to be really stern. But in real life, William is so pleasant. On Mysteries Unearthed, we’re following in his footsteps. We go where no man has gone before!”
*Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo series two premieres on Sky HISTORY and HISTORY Play on March 11 at 9pm.
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