Sonny Landham
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William M. "Sonny" Landham (born February 11, 1941 in Canton, Georgia) is an American movie actor and political candidate. He is a descendant of the Cherokee and Seminole nations.
Landham appeared in a number of Hollywod movies, including Southern Comfort, Predator, 48 Hours, Action Jackson and made a cameo appearance as a cop in the 1979 classic The Warriors.
Landham suffered a number of legal setbacks after his acting career ended. He was involved in a protracted and bitter child custody dispute with his ex-wife, and was convicted in 1998 of three counts of making threating telephone calls to her. After 31 months in federal prison, Landham's conviction was quashed on appeal. He later sued the Federal government alleging false imprisonment. Landham also pursued a (finally unsuccessful) lawsuit against toymaker Galoob for royalties on the Predator related action figure that depicted his character.
Militated by his experiences of the legal system, in 2003 Landham ran in the Republican Party primary election for the post of Governor of Kentucky, hoping to repeat the success of his Predator castmates Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He based his candidacy on opposition to an amendment which endorsed the Kentucky Family Court, saying his bad experiences at the hands of the family court had convinced him that it was run for the benefit of lawyers rather than families or children. Landham's run was hampered by media revelations that he had appeared in a number of adult movies during the 1970s, and he was unsuccessful in gaining the party's nomination. He ran briefly as an independent candidate, but withdrew on June 18 and endorsed the Republican slate.
In January 2004, Landham announced his candidacy for the 27th State Senate District.
External link
- Sonny Landham's website (http://www.sonnylandham.com)
- The US court of appeal's finding overturning Landham's convictions (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=6th/01a0175p.html)
- Landham's lawsuit against Galoob (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=6th&navby=case&no=00a0328p)
- Template:Imdb name
References
- Kentucky Post report about gubernatorial race (http://www.kypost.com/2002/aug/10/kinney081002.html)