Darrell Fetty

DARRELL FETTY... BIO ...wrote and produced with Leslie Greif History Network's successful miniseries Texas Rising, which won three Emmys, New York Film Festival Gold Medal Awards, Golden Reel awards, online film & television awards (Best Visual Effects and Costume Design) and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage award for Outstanding Television Feature. Directed by Oscar-nominated Roland Joffe and starring (among others) Bill Paxton, Kris Kristofferson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Olivier Martinez, Texas Rising earned the Screen Actors Guild "Best Actor in a TV Movie/Miniseries for Ray Liotta and the Women's Image Network award "Best Actress in a Drama Series" for Cynthia Adai-Robinson. Greif & Fetty's Hatfields & McCoys miniseries for History, starring Kevin Costner and directed by Kevin Reynolds, was the highest rated entertainment cable telecast of all time, earning Emmy, Golden Globe, and Producer Guild Nominations for Darrell as well as sixteen Emmy nominations (with five wins) and two Golden Globes as well as Screen Actors Guild, Satellite, TCA, Critics Choice awards, and numerous other media and film industry nominations and awards for the miniseries. Darrell was originally inspired to tell the true version of this legendary feud by his first wife Carolyne McCoy, a descendant of both Hatfield and McCoy ancestors. Darrell partnered with Executive Producer Leslie Greif when both were just starting out in the film business and their journey to make the definitive Hatfields & McCoys was a years-in-the-making labor of love. Darrell graduated at the top of his class from one of the last one-room schoolhouses in the nation at Balls' Gap, West Virginia. Of course, he was also at the bottom of his class, since he was the only kid in sixth grade. As a teenager, Darrell went from playing piano for a church choir to singing and playing in Rock bands and acting. At Marshall University, he was active in theatre, WMUL TV & radio and the Parthenon newspaper. He was still in college when he created and fronted "The Satisfied Minds," recording artists for Plato Records. After graduation from Marshall, Darrell headed west. He soon got a job in the mail room of American International Pictures, working his way up to Story Analyst during the era of that storied company's dominance in low-budget horror, "Blaxploitation," and biker movies. He was also trying to kick start an acting career by auditioning at every opportunity for Los Angeles theatre and student film productions, eventually landing roles at the Mark Taper Forum and Hollywood's Ford Amphitheatre and in short films for, among others, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future, Forest Gump), USC film students at the time. Darrell continued his music career by joining the L.A. band "Pacific Ocean" with actor/singer Edward James Olmos (Miami Vice, Blade Runner, Academy Award nominee for Stand And Deliver). Their adventures during those early days have been chronicled by his band mate Steven "Rusty" Johnson in the book Walk Don't Run from Kalisti Publishing Co. Darrell's other musical endeavors include composing songs for TV and movies and a stage collaboration with poet/writer James Kavanaugh called "Street Music,"a musical staged in San Francisco and Beverly Hills. Darrell's first paid acting job was as a teenage bully on Room 222, one of television's first high school dramas. He went on to guest star in over one hundred roles on episodic TV (Happy Days, Starsky & Hutch, Kojak, Streets Of San Francisco, Hawaii Five-O, Facts Of Life, thirty something, One Day At A Time, Fantasy Island...to name few) as well as a number of television movies and mini- series (Gangster Chronicles, James Michener's Centennial, Murder Ordained, Elvis And The Beauty Queen, etc.).Darrell also had prominent roles in the feature films Endangered Species, Blood Beach, Stunts, The Wind And The Lion with Sean Connery and Candace Bergen, and writer/director John Milius' surfing epic Big Wednesday. Darrell starred in several TV network pilots, including one about a rock band for CBS/Universal called Friends, (a title later used for a rather more successful series). After Friends, Darrell began writing a screenplay intended as a starring vehicle for himself. The script, optioned but never produced, led to more writing jobs (TV's Simon & Simon, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer) and feature development deals. During this time, he teamed with MTV director Francis Delia to write music videos for recording artists Adam Ant, The Ramones, Jefferson Starship, Michael Murphy, The Blasters, and The Bangles. Darrell married actress/model Joyce Ingalls (The Man Who Would Not Die, Deadly Force, Paradise Alley) in 1984. After the birth of their sons Derek & Tyler, Darrell turned to writing full-time, taking a staff job on the NBC series