Morgan Freeman (1937 - )

His is an authoritative voice like no other, and Morgan Freeman, our favorite American actor, is one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema.

He's an actor, director, and narrator. Morgan Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest of five children born to barber Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Sr. and schoolteacher Mayme Edna. He was raised in Chicago and Mississippi in a low-income home. Not long after he was born, Morgan's parents, like so many other African-Americans struggling under the pressures of the Jim Crow south, relocated to Chicago to find work. While his parents looked for jobs, Freeman remained with his maternal grandmother in Charlestown, Mississippi.

At the age of six, Freeman's grandmother died and he moved north to be with his mother, who had already separated from her alcoholic husband. More moves followed, to Tennessee and eventually back to Mississippi, where Mayme Edna settled her family in Greenwood.

As a child, Freeman spent a good portion of his time scraping together enough money to see movies, where he formed an early admiration for actors like Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, and Sidney Poitier. It was by chance that Freeman himself got into acting. He was in junior high school and, as punishment for pulling out a chair from underneath a girl he had a crush on, Freeman was ordered to participate in the school's drama competition. To his surprise, and probably school administrators, the 12-year-old proved to be an immediate natural on the stage, taking top honors.

He later attended Los Angeles Community College before serving several years in the US Air Force as a mechanic between 1955 and 1959. His first dramatic arts exposure had been on the stage as a child, and again he found himself on the stage in an off Broadway production of "The Nigger Lovers." In 1967, the same year he married Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, his big break finally came when he landed a roll in an all-African American production of the musical Hello, Dolly! starring Pearl Bailey.

The richness of his movie roles grew from there, with more and more unique opportunities evolving, less dependent upon his race. Click here for a tongue-in-cheek view of the heirarchy of characters played by Freeman!

Freeman first appeared on TV screens as several characters including Easy Reader, Mel Mounds, and Count Dracula on the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) show The Electric Company. He then moved into feature film with another children's adventure, Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow? (1971) . Next there was a small role in the thriller Blade; then he played Casca in Julius Caesar (1979) and the title role in Coriolanus. Regular work was coming in for the talented Freeman and he appeared in the prison dramas Attica and Brubaker, the slow-moving Eyewitness, and portrayed the final 24 hours of slain Malcolm X in Death of a Prophet (1981).

For most of the 1980s, Freeman continued to contribute decent performances in films that fluctuated in their quality. However, he really stood out, scoring an Oscar nomination as a merciless hoodlum in Street Smart (1987) , and then he dazzled audiences and pulled a second Oscar nomination as the patient and dignified chauffeur assisting moody pensioner Jessica Tandy in the delightful Driving Miss Daisy. The same year, Freeman teamed up with Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington in the epic Civil War drama Glory about freed slaves being recruited to form the first all-African American fighting brigade.

Freeman, now solidly a star, saw the 1990s start off very well indeed for him, with roles in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Power of One. Freeman's next role was as gunman Ned Logan, wooed out of retirement by friend William Munny to avenge several prostitutes in the wild west town of Big Whiskey in Clint Eastwood's de-mythologized western Unforgiven. The film was a critical and box-office smash and scored an acting Oscar for Gene Hackman, a directing Oscar for Eastwood, and the Oscar for best picture.

Freeman's work did not go unnoticed, however (though we happen to feel he has been far underappreciated by the Academy); soon he was back behind bars depicting a knowledgeable inmate (and obtaining his third Oscar nomination), befriending falsely accused banker Tim Robbins in the uplifting The Shawshank Redemption. He was then back out hunting a religious serial killer in Se7en, then starred alongside Keanu Reeves in Chain Reaction, and was pursuing another serial murderer in Kiss the Girls.

Further praise followed for his role in the slave tale of Amistad, he was a worried US President facing Armageddon from above in Deep Impact, appeared in the loopy Neil LaBute black comedy Nurse Betty, and reprised his role as "Alex Cross" in Along Came a Spider. Now highly popular, he was much in demand with cinema audiences, and he co-starred in the terrorist drama The Sum of All Fears, was a military officer in the Stephen King-inspired Dreamcatcher, gave divine guidance as God to Jim Carrey in the very funny Bruce Almighty, and played a minor role in the uneven comedy The Big Bounce.

However, 2005 was finally to be Morgan Freeman's year, when again he teamed up with good friend Clint Eastwood to appear in the heart-wrenching drama, Million Dollar Baby. Freeman's on-screen performance is simply world-class as ex-prize fighter Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris, who works in a run-down boxing gym alongside grizzled trainer Frankie Dunn, as the two work together to hone the skills of never-say-die female boxer Hilary Swank. Freeman received his fourth Oscar nomination and, finally, impressed the Academy's judges enough to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

In addition to his film work, his commanding yet calming and beautiful voice has also led Freeman to be cast to narrate or host dozens of first-rate television specials covering topics from the American Civil War, the American Film Institute, blues music, the White House, and many commemorative events involving the US film industry. Most recently he was the narrator of the American version of March of the Penguins.