|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American Academy Award-nominated, Emmy Award- and Tony Award-winning actor of screen and stage, as well as playwright, director, and producer. Possessing as much flash, energy and intelligence as anyone currently in the game, Laurence Fishburne has certainly played his share of regulation black hoodlums and threats but also has benefited from color-blind casting as his tour de force Broadway performance as England's King Henry II (opposite Stockard Channing as his Eleanor) in a 1999 revival of "The Lion in Winter" attests. His role as Cowboy Curtis, best buddy to Pee-wee Herman on TV's legendary kid series "Pee-wee's Playhouse" (CBS), is another reminder of his tremendous versatility. Fishburne was born in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Hattie Bell Crawford, a junior high school mathematics and science teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer. His parents divorced during his childhood and his mother moved with him to Brooklyn, New York where he was raised. Fishburne's father saw him once a month. He is a graduate of Lincoln Square Academy in New York which closed in the 1980s. It was she who encouraged him to be an actor and young Larry (as he was then billed) began his professional career with a New York stage debut at age ten. For three years (from 1973 to 1976), he portrayed adoptee Joshua West Hall on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live" and made his film debut as the "Me" in "Cornbread, Earl and Me" (1975). After 18 months filming in the Philippines, Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" (1979) brought him to mainstream attention, and he subsequently appeared in the director's "Rumble Fish" (1983), "The Cotton Club" (1984) and "Gardens of Stone" (1987). Other prominent roles included playing Swain in Steven Spielberg's "The Color Purple" (1986) and Afro-centrist Dap Dunlap in Spike Lee's "School Daze" (1988). Fishburne started acting at age twelve getting his first gig in 1973 portraying Joshua Hall on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live. He was initially cast in the hit television series Good Times, but the role was eventually given to Ralph Carter. Fishburne's most memorable childhood role was in Cornbread, Earl and Me in which he played a young boy who witnessed the police shooting of a popular high school basketball star. Fishburne later earned a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, in which he played a 17-year-old sailor nicknamed 'Mr. Clean'. When production began in March 1976 he was just fourteen, apparently lying about his age to get the part. Filming took so long that he was already seventeen upon its completion. Fishburne spent much of the 1980s in and out of television and periodically on stage. Fishburne had a recurring role as Cowboy Curtis with Paul Reubens' character, Pee Wee Herman in the CBS children's television show, Pee-Wee's Playhouse. He also appeared in the M*A*S*H episode, "The Tooth Shall Set You Free", as Corporal Dorsey. His stage work during the 1980s included Short Eyes in 1984 , and Loose Ends in 1987 . Both were produced at Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Fishburne starred as a loose cannon former convict in the 1990 world premiere of August Wilson's "Two Trains Running" at Yale Repertory Theater and recreated the role on Broadway in 1992, winning several prizes including a Tony Award. After his no-holds barred histrionics elevated his psychotic killer in "The King of New York" (1990) above that of a garden-variety thug, he provided the moral center of "Boyz N The Hood" (1991) as Furious Styles, a model father who steers his son away from L.A. gang life, then radiated a sullen intensity as an undercover cop in Bill Duke's edgy thriller, "Deep Cover" (1992). On the heels of his winning an Emmy for a guest appearance in the 1992 Fox anthology series "Tribeca", Fishburne earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his riveting, unflattering portrait of 60s pop star Ike Turner, so critical to the success of the Tina Turner biopic "What's Love Got to Do With It" (1993), which reunited the actor with Angela Bassett, his estranged wife in "Boyz". He also lent solid support as a streetwise chess player in the underrated "Searching for Bobby Fischer" (also 1993). In 1995, Fishburne appeared in four diverse features. In John Singleton's "Higher Learning", he was an articulate political science professor attempting to motivate his apathetic students. Underutilized as a spy paired with Ellen Barkin in "Bad Company", he delivered the goods as a tough cop resentful of the investigations of a law professor (Sean Connery) in "Just Cause". And despite never having performed Shakespeare before, Fishburne made screen history as the first black actor to portray the Bard's Moor in a major studio film in Oliver Parker's "Othello". 1995 saw Fishburne make his Off-Broadway debut as a playwright and director with "Riff-Raff", a popular, loosely structured drama about an African-American con man (Fishburne) and his relationship with a white junkie, which he adapted into the feature "Once in the Life" (2000). Also that year, the actor delivered an Emmy-nominated turn as a courageous WWII pilot in the superior HBO movie "The Tuskegee Airmen.” In 1990 he played Jimmy Jump in the controversial King of New York, and in 1991, Fishburne starred in Boyz N The Hood. The following year, in 1992, he won a Tony Award for his stage performance in the August Wilson play, Two Trains Running and an Emmy Award for his performance in the opening episode, "The Box," of the short-lived anthology series television drama TriBeCa. In 1993, he received his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It?. Today, Fishburne is perhaps best known for his role as Morpheus, the hacker-mentor of Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, in the 1999 blockbuster science fiction film, The Matrix. He briefly appears as a stretcher-bearer in one version of the video for The Spooks' song "Things I've Seen" (2000). Reuniting with Bill Duke, Fishburne executive produced and starred in "Hoodlum" (1997), essaying real-life Harlem racketeer 'Bumpy' Johnson, on whom his "The Cotton Club" character had been based. The extremely watchable Depression-era film benefited greatly from the fresh angle its black point-of-view brought to a fairly well-known historical account, and Fishburne displayed a great range of emotions lurking under Bumpy's seemingly placid exterior. He pulled down his second Emmy as executive producer of the universally acclaimed "Miss Evers' Boys" (HBO, 1997), a dramatization of the Tuskegee Study, a shameful medical experiment in which the US Public Health Service withheld treatment from a group of African-American men with syphilis to examine the effects. Fishburne also co-starred as an early participant in the study who romances Alfre Woodard's nurse Eunice Evers. After executive producing and starring as Socrates Fortlow in HBO's "Always Outnumbered" (1998), he enjoyed his biggest commercial success to date with the sci-fi actioner "The Matrix" (1999). Finding a balance between action hero and Zen Master, Fishburne offered a commanding presence as the mysterious revolutionary Morpheus, but it was the arresting visual style of its writer-directors (the Wachowski brothers) that attracted the hordes through the turnstiles. After the mega-success of "The Matrix," Fishburne took his first turn behind the camera as the director of "Once in the Life" (2000), an adaptation of his 1994 play "Riff Raff" in which he starred as two-bit hood 20/20 Mike, a supposed expert at self-preservation whose world is thrown into chaos when his white junkie half-brother fouls up a heroin heist. The film was well-acted and handsomely filmed, but suffered from the claustrophobic confines of its theatrical origins. Fishburne next appeared in the fast-paced action film "Biker Boyz" (2003) as Smoke, the reigning champion among a ring of African American professionals by day who become motorcycle street racers by night. That same year he returned to the role of Morpheus--now exchanging his signature cool for volume and bravado in Morpheus' new incarnation as a borderline zealot--for "The Matrix Reloaded" and its filmed-back-to-back sequel, "The Matrix Revolutions." Fishburne reprised his role as Morpheus in the Matrix sequels, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions in 2003. He has appeared with Tom Cruise as Theodore Brassell, IMF superior of Cruise's character in Mission: Impossible III. In 2006 he appeared on stage with Angela Bassett in a Pasadena production of the August Wilson masterpiece, Fences. Most recently, he provided the voice of the narrator in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) movie, released 23 March 2007. The same year, he provided the voice of the Silver Surfer in 2007 film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The actor was then used to strong effect by director Clint Eastwood in "Mystic River" (2003), playing police detective Whitey Powers, who doubts the ability of his partner (Kevin Bacon) to stay impartial on a homicide case involving two of his childhood friends (Sean Penn and Tim Robbins). Next it was on to the role of a powerful crime kingpin whose arrest provokes an all-out invasion of a police precinct house in the well-assembled 2005 remake of the thriller "Assault on Precinct 13." Fishburne next costarred alongside Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michelle Monaghan in “Mission: Impossible 3” (2006), the third installment to the popular spy franchise directed this time by “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams that depicted a retired Ethan Hunt (Cruise) living a slower-paced life while training new IMF agents. But he’s called back to action to due battle with Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an international weapons dealer who may turn out to be Hunt’s toughest adversary yet. Fishburne has worked with actress Angela Bassett on four projects. He says "An electrifying thing happens when the two of us work together. I haven’t experienced it with anyone else. A freedom happens when we work together." They both plan to work with each other in the future. On February 24, 2007, Fishburne was honored with the Harvard Foundation's Artist of the Year award at the annual show Cultural Rhythms. He received this honor for his prowess as an actor and entertainer and for his humanitarian pursuits. Fishburne is a UNICEF ambassador. The mayor of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mayor Kenneth Reeves awarded him the key to the city and declared the twenty-fourth of February, “Laurence Fishburne” day in the city of Cambridge. In April 2008, Fishburne will return to the stage in the Broadway production of Thurgood, a new play by George Stevens, Jr., directed by Leonard Foglia. Thugood will open at the Booth Theatre on April 30, 2008 with previews starting on April 12, 2008. Fishburne married actress Hajna Moss in 1985, in Ethiopia. They have two children together: a son, Langston, born in 1987, and a daughter, Montana, born in 1991. Fishburne and Moss divorced sometime in the mid 1990s. Fishburne is now married to actress Gina Torres, whom he wed on September 20, 2002. They have a daughter, Delilah, born June 2007. Fishburne is a big fan of Paulo Coelho and plans to produce a movie based on the novel The Alchemist. Fishburne is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for the United States. Fishburne lives in Castle Village in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Celebrities Guide 
| WhoABC
Home : Disclaimer
: Terms
: Privacy
Policy : Contact
Us : Links All original content Copyright Celebrities Guide, WhoABC.com © 2004 - 2008. All Rights Reserved |