Duane Chapman life and biography

Duane Chapman is an American bounty hunter and a former bail bondsman. He stars in Dog the Bounty Hunter, a weekly reality television program which is broadcast on the A&E Network (USA), FOX8 and GO! (Australia), OLN and A&E Network (Canada), Max (Norway) and RTL II (Germany) and formerly broadcast on Channel One and Bravo (UK/Ireland) both of which, are defunct.

Duane Lee Chapman was born on February 2, 1953, to Wesley Chapman and Barbara Chapman. He is the eldest of four children, having two younger sisters and one brother. According to Chapman, he is of Native American ancestry, from his mother's side. A gang member gave him his nickname "God" spelled backwards.

Chapman started his business in his hometown Denver, before moving to Hawaii with his family. He ran his business as a family enterprise. He included another bounty hunter Tim Chapman, Alice Elizabeth Smith (presently married to Duane Chapman) and various members of his family and friends.

In 1980, he met Tony Robbins, a motivational speaker who was quite impressed by the effort Duane had shown in changing his life for the better. Robbins mentioned him in his book Awake the Giant Within. According to Chapman, he has made over 6,000 captures without firing a single bullet. Being an ex-con, he understood the difficulties faced after prison and so not only he helped capture the felons but made a serious effort to rehabilitate them.

In June 2003, Chapman captured the Max Factor heir Andrew Luster, who was convicted in absentia by the American court, for drugging and raping several women and fleeing to Mexico. Chapman and his team refused to handover Andrew Luster to the Mexican police. So, the latter charged them for breaking extradition laws and declared them fugitives, for leaving the country without obtaining permission from the presiding judge. This put Duane Chapman in the spotlight and got him his own TV Show. On November 5, 2007, US Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren dismissed the extradition charges.

Duane's show Dog the Bounty Hunter became the highest-rated TV show, but was not free from controversies. In March 2007, an audiotape containing a racially abusive conversation between his son Tucker and himself about the former's African American girlfriend was made public, forcing A&E to cancel the show.

Chapman issued a public apology for "regrettable use of very inappropriate language" on November 1, 2007. A&E resumed airing the show from June 25, 2008 and it is presently in its 6th season. He has also written a book You Can Run, But You Can't Hide, where he has chronicled his journey from being a convict to a bounty hunter.

Duane married and divorced five times before re-marrying Alice Elizabeth Smith (Beth Chapman), for the sixth time. He has 13 children of which two are no more. Zebediah died shortly after birth in1980 and in 2006, Barbara Katie was killed in a traffic accident at the age of 24.

Duane Chapman's life has been a roller coaster ride, from a school dropout to a convict who turned his life around as a bounty hunter. According to him the urge to commit violent crimes still lurks, but he simply no longer feels the need to exercise it.

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