Deadly Whispers: Tony Danza’s Odd Turn as a Murderous Father

Imagine Tony Danza in a frilly dress and sun hat, clutching a parasol and drawling “Fiddle-dee-dee! Ashley Wilkes told me he likes to see a girl with a healthy appetite!” and you’ll have some idea of the absurdity of his casting in Deadly Whispers (1995). The extent to which he mangles an exaggerated Southern accent is hard to overstate; when he says “Yo missin’ The Waltons” (rather than “You’re missing”) only 10 minutes into the movie, you might laugh harder than you ever did at Who’s the Boss?

Unfortunately for Danza, Deadly Whispers isn’t supposed to be funny. In this thinly veiled dramatization of the 1987 murder of Kathy Bonney, he plays Virginia salvage yard owner Tom Acton, the last person to see his troubled teenage daughter Kathy (Heather Tom) alive before she disappears. A high school dropout who answers the phones at Tom’s business — he doesn’t need the help but refuses to let her out of his sight — she defiantly teases her hair and bares her midriff in pursuit of a married coworker.

“You ever get the feelin’ somebody’s watching you?” Kathy asks her mother Carol (Pamela Reed) the night before she goes missing. Despite a lazy red herring or two, there’s little suspense about what happened; only one suspect is shown to have been obsessed with her. Dutiful housewife Carol, forever pushing a vacuum or preparing a pot roast, resists the truth even as Det. Jackson (Ving Rhames) informs her that Tom’s in his crosshairs. But don’t be fooled by her mousy exterior, she’s hiding quite a bit of mettle under that sensible cobbler apron.

“My guess is that you come from a fine family, an educated family. Well, things are just a little bit different this side of the mountain,” Carol tells a more privileged character late in Deadly Whispers, continuing “You look at us and you just see poor people, but you don’t understand, sir, we’re a success story. My kids got clean clothes. And we got decent food on the table now, something you can swallow.” Her criticism could just as easily be leveled at some of her costars: Danza and Camryn Manheim (as Carol’s friend and neighbor) play caricatures, not characters.

Without Reed’s quiet ferocity and strong supporting work by Rhames, Deadly Whispers would be completely unwatchable — Danza’s performance is that terrible. It’s unclear what he’s trying to convey or why Tom seems more developmentally delayed than Sean Penn in I Am Sam; the real-life Tom Bonney was a cunning criminal who utilized a hotly contested psychiatric diagnosis as a cynical defense ploy. And then there’s that drawl, occasionally filtered through Danza’s Brooklyn accent. How did his readings of “I guess we gotta git halp” and “They wuz havin’ an affair-uh” not end up on the editing room floor?

Could any of this have been what director Bill Norton (Vows of Deception) actually wanted? Probably not, but a glance at the oeuvre of screenwriter Dennis Turner (adapting a book by Ted Schwarz) suggests he might’ve gotten a perverse kick out of Whispers’ failings. A former Dynasty and Colbys staff writer who scripted several Elizabeth Montgomery telefilms and biopics of figures like Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke and Leona Helmsley, Turner also penned the 1985 miniseries adaptation of The Long, Hot Summer, which featured no fewer than three hours of silly dialogue and questionable Southern accents.

Streaming and DVD availability

Deadly Whispers currently streams on Tubi, Freevee and YouTube.

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Cranky Lesbian

Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.

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