donnie l. betts

Filmmaker donnie l. betts was born on June 19, 1952 in DeKalb, Texas to Mayme Haynes and Norris Betts. He earned his B.A. degree in mass communications from Metropolitan State University of Denver in Denver, Colorado in 1987. He went on to study at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut between 1987 and 1990.

Before he began his film career, betts worked on his family’s farm and as a salesclerk with Raymond Department Store until 1970. He was a founding member of the Denver Black Arts Company in 1976, where he participated in the productions of The Hobbit, The River Niger, and more. He held various casting and production positions on television series like Carol & Company, In Living Color, and Dream On, while appearing in two Perry Mason television films in 1993. betts performed with the Denver Center Theatre Company for nine seasons, and in 1995, he founded No Credits Productions. That same year, he completed his first documentary, Dearfield: The Road Less Traveled, a story about Dearfield, Colorado’s historic African American farming community founded in 1910, and La La Uncut, a commercial film about a rock star. In 1998, betts revised and rebranded Destination Freedom, a weekly program which began in 1948 in Chicago by Richard Durham, now known as Destination Freedom Black Radio Days, an audio drama and interview series, as producer, writer and director. He directed the documentary, Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress: The Story of Oscar Brown Jr., in 2005. His other productions include “Lincoln Hills” and “Justina Ford, MD”, episodes in the Colorado Experience series from the Public Broadcasting Service, The Artist, My Voice, and The Holly. In 2020, betts served as a visiting lecturer in the College of Arts & Media at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Throughout his career, betts received numerous awards and honors including two Heartland Emmy Awards in 2005, 2024, and a National Emmy in 2025. He was the youngest recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from the State of Colorado in 1993. Between 1995 and 2008, he was the recipient of Best Documentary and Audience awards from various film festivals; and in 2003, he was a two-time winner of the Colorado Association of Black Journalists’ (CABJ) Scribes in Excellence Award and the Radio Journalist of the Year Award.

betts has served as a member of the NAACP and ACLU. As an actor, he has held memberships with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Actors’ Equity Association.

betts has two children, Adrianne Traylor and Timothy J. Betts. He also has three grandchildren. betts and his wife, Linda Morken, reside in Aurora, Colorado.