The Ugly Truth

M was born in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles on May 16, 1944.  I’m sure his parents thought their little baby was cute but, after that, his hard life took a toll on him.  Eventually he would be world famous, in part, for being ugly…scary ugly.

I’m sure it had something to do with drugs, crime, and prison…plenty of prison.

Well, plenty of all of them.

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Life started going downhill early-on for M.  He was first sent to juvenile detention for hitting another boy.  His life of crime grew to involve drug dealing.  Of course, this life included lots of alcohol, and he became addicted to heroin by the time he was twelve.

Yes, twelve.

He joined his uncle’s gang of criminals, at first as a getaway driver, but later taking part in armed robberies.

In one interview, M said, “When I was young, I was an armed robber.  I did robberies.  And there’s no adrenaline rush like that.  When you’re using drugs and doing robberies, it’s hard to distinguish whether you’re doing robberies to support your drug habit, or doing drugs to support your robbery habit.  Those guys that flip on motorcycles–it’s like the same kind of adrenaline.”

A violent, drug addicted, drug dealing, alcoholic, armed robber; how low could he go?

You’re about to find out.

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Accounts vary, but it seems he was first locked up around the time he was 15.  Later he was caught in a drug bust and sentenced to ten years behind bars.  Between 1959 and 1969, he spent time in six California prisons, including San Quentin, Soledad, and Folsom.  Those places are famous, and not because they are popular vacation destinations.  Nope, they are among America’s toughest prisons.

M is not a tall man; he’s only 5’6” tall, and was pretty small in those days.  In tough prisons, little men have to decide to get tough, or find a “boyfriend” to protect them.

M didn’t want to go that way.  He chose to become one of the toughest of the tough.  He had to fight to establish his toughness.  His body was already heavily tattooed and his face was pockmarked due to cystic acne.  Now he added some scars gained in fights.  He took up boxing and eventually became both lightweight and welterweight champion of the prison. 

Despite building a reputation for being a tough guy, things were still bad inside.  Of course, it didn’t help that he couldn’t stay out of trouble.

On Cinco de Mayo (May 5) 1968, M and some cohorts incited a riot.  Afterwards, M was charged, among other things, with hitting a guard in the head with a rock, seriously injuring him.  Today he readily admits to throwing the rock, although he says he was aiming at someone else.

OK.

M was locked away in solitary confinement.

In solitary, you have nothing to do but exercise a little, sleep, and think…a lot.  M knew his life wasn’t going well, and he didn’t like the path he was on.  He was 24-years-old, with a lengthy rap-sheet.  With the new charges waged against him, M saw a very real chance of facing the death penalty.

Let’s call it hitting rock-bottom. 

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M decided it was time.  If he could avoid getting the book thrown at him for his crimes during the riot, he would straighten out his life.  He would take part in a 12-step program and put alcoholism and drug addiction behind him.  He was going to go straight and stay out of trouble…for good.

He did it…all of it.  Well, “for good” or not remained to be seen.

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When he was released after ten very-tough years in various prisons, M was determined to make it on the outside.  By 1985 he was working as a youth drug counselor.  It was while helping young people with their drug issues that the stars finally aligned for him.

Harkening back to his own days in a 12-step program, M was scheduled to speak at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985.  There he talked to a young man about the program and how it works.  He volunteered to help the youngster some time if he was facing a hard time with his addiction. 

Not long after, M got a call from the young man.  He was a production assistant on a movie set and said there was a lot of cocaine on-set.  He needed support to stay clean so M went to see him.  As it happens, the young man was working on the movie, Runaway Train.  Somebody saw M and must have thought, “There’s a guy who looks like a prisoner.”  He was asked to be a “convict extra.”

It just so happened that there was a screenwriter on the set who was in San Quentin at the same as M and remembered how good he was in the boxing ring.  The writer immediately offered M $320 per day to train the actors for some boxing in the movie. 

If it’s not enough of a coincidence that the screenwriter knew M, director Andrey Konchalovskiy saw him training Eric Roberts and immediately offered him a featured role as the actors’ opponent in the film.

As M tells it, Konchalovskiy said, “Can you act like a convict?”

M added, “I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. I’d been in every penitentiary in the state. I looked at him and I said, ‘Well, I’ll give it a shot.’”

And that’s how M’s new life really started an upswing.

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The M stands for Machete, a role Danny “Machete” Trejo played in some of the over 300 movies in which he has appeared.  Maybe you’ve seen him in the commercials he has done, and music videos he has appeared in, as well as the voice-overs he’s done for various cartoons.  He’s even lent his gravelly voice to a couple popular video games.

Other than his looks, with his deeply lined face, tattoos, and scars, Danny is anything but the criminal he plays in most of his roles, and once was in real life.  No.  Now he has a reputation as one of the nicest actors in Hollywood.

Just as he helped the young man on the set of Runaway Train, Danny still helps people with drug problems get their lives straightened out.  In one interview, he said, “My passion is talking with kids… the gift of being able to go into a juvenile hall to talk to kids because it’s almost impossible, because kids have no attention span whatsoever… [But] because of my role in Machete, the minute I walk onto any campus, I have their undivided attention. This movie has been such a gift because I can walk into any prison, San Quentin, whichever, and these kids will listen. They won’t listen to psychologists, parents, teachers, no one, but for me, they go out of their way to listen because they believe and trust I understand their lives. And, of course I do, and did, even before I filmed Machete. My message to them is, ‘We don’t drink, we don’t use drugs, we help other people and our lives will get better. Most importantly make the decision to believe in yourself.’”

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Danny doesn’t just help people, he also volunteers at the Villalobos Pitbull Shelter helping rehabilitate those “tough guy” dogs.

But there’s even more to this “bad guy gone good.”  In August 2019, Trejo witnessed a car and SUV collision.  No one was seriously hurt, but a five-year-old was trapped, upside down in the car-seat that had saved its life.  Danny and another bystander, Monica Jackson, worked together to free the child.

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Besides his acting, Trejo owns several ventures in the food and restaurant business. As of January 2016 these included a taco restaurant in Los Angeles; his own brands of beer; coffee; and various merchandise, with ice cream sandwiches under development.  He also started Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts.

Ice cream and donuts?  Are you kidding me? 

Not even a little bit.

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So, next time you watch one of the many movies in which Danny Trejo plays a big, ugly bad guy who would happily tear your heart out, remember, it’s just an actor playing a role.  One for which he has plenty of real-life practice. 

When you think about it, a donut shop is kind of appropriate for a guy as sweet as Danny Trejo.

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