Tim Durham Is Skin Deep With Danny DeVito




Durham with Erica Taylor at Ludacris Live Party the couple hosted last year

The Dread interviews Hollywood actor/director Danny DeVito about his latest film short, Skin Deep, which stars indicted Ponzi scheme operator Tim Durham's lady friend Erica Taylor and was filmed at Durham's National Lampoon Mansion in the Hollywood Hills, which DeVito says was the perfect place to film his latest horror flick (no pun intended):

Speaking with the diminutive-in-size yet statuesque-in-personality DeVito early this March, the sixty-six-year-old actor chatted with Dread regarding his just wrapped Skin Deep, a Splatter Cut short film (as he refers to them) which will serve as the fifteenth entry in his ever-growing library of personally produced and directed horror shorts (which are streamed digitally via his The Blood Factory website . . .

Of that production which filmed over the course of three days, “Erica (Taylor) and Tim Durham’s place was just perfect for ‘Skin Deep’,” said DeVito of the Lampoon location, “and Erica is a really talented young woman, and she fit the bill (of our lead). Dave Margulies (Ghostbusters), who has been my buddy for many years and used to direct me on the stage, portrayed the devil, and he’s a solid, solid actor. Anyone that has worked with him can attest to how connected he is with the characters that he plays, but he also has a great whimsy to him. He’ll boldly go where others may not want to tread, and it’s a lot of fun that way.”


With the narrative of Skin Deep focusing on Taylor’s character, who sixty-six years after striking a deal with Ol’ Scratch finds him returning to claim her gambled beauty in the most ironic of ways, we commented on the obvious thematic similarities between DeVito’s Splatter Cuts and the iconic EC Comics’ title Tales from the Crypt, among others.

You can see photos of the big bash Durham co-hosted last year with rapper Ludacris at a Malibu home formerly owned by Cher here for approximately 1,000 guests, including aging rocker Gene Simmons. An earlier story on the Dread during filiming of the movie at Durham's National Lampoon mansion is found here. Wonder what you earn for renting a home out for the filming of a movie these days? Perhaps the bankruptcy trustee for Fair Finance Co. might want to find out.