Morgan Freeman: (Hide)

Morgan Freeman[2] (born June 1, 1937)[3] is an American actor, producer and narrator.
Freeman
won an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor with Million Dollar Baby (2004), and
he has received Oscar nominations for his performances in Street Smart (1987), Driving Miss
Daisy (1989), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Invictus (2009). He has also won
a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Freeman has appeared in many other box office hits, including Glory (1989), Robin Hood: Prince
of Thieves (1991), Seven (1995), Deep Impact (1998), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Bruce
Almighty (2003), The Dark Knight Trilogy (20052012), The Lego Movie(2014), and Lucy (2014).
He is known for his distinctively smooth, deep voice and his skill at narration. He got his break as
part of the cast of the 1970s children's program The Electric Company. Morgan Freeman is
ranked as the 3rd highest box office star with over $4.316 billion total box office gross, an
average of $74.4 million per film.[4]
Contents
[hide]
1Early life and education
2Career
o
2.1Acting career
2.2Other work
3Personal life
o
3.1Family
3.2Religious views
3.3Properties
3.4Flying
3.5Car accident
3.6Beekeeping
4Activism
o
4.1Charitable work
4.2Politics
4.3Comments on racism
5Filmography
6Awards and honors
7See also
8Notes and references
9External links
Early life and education

Morgan Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the son of Mayme
Edna (ne Revere; 19122000), a teacher,[5] and Morgan Porterfield Freeman,[2] a barber who
died on April 27, 1961, from cirrhosis. He has three older siblings. According to a DNA analysis,
some of his ancestors were from Niger.[6] Freeman was sent as an infant to his paternal
grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi.[7][8][9] He moved frequently during his childhood, living
in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago, Illinois.[9]
Freeman made his acting debut at age nine, playing the lead role in a school play. He then
attended Broad Street High School, a building which serves today as Threadgill Elementary
School, in Greenwood, Mississippi.[10] At age 12, he won a statewide drama competition, and
while still at Broad Street High School, he performed in a radio show based in Nashville,
Tennessee. In 1955, he graduated from Broad Street, but turned down a partial drama
scholarship from Jackson State University, opting instead to enlist in the United States Air
Force[11] and served as an Automatic Tracking Radar Repairman, rising to the rank of Airman 1st
Class.[12] Freeman's service portrait appears in his character's funeral scene in The Bucket List.
After four years in the military, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he took acting lessons
at the Pasadena Playhouse and dancing lessons in San Francisco in the early 1960s and worked
as a transcript clerk at Los Angeles City College.[11] During this period, Freeman also lived in New
York City, working as a dancer at the 1964 World's Fair, and in San Francisco, where he was a
member of the Opera Ring musical theater group. He acted in a touring company version of The
Royal Hunt of the Sun, and also appeared as an extra in the 1965 film The
Pawnbroker. Freeman made his off-Broadway debut in 1967, opposite Viveca Lindfors in The
Nigger Lovers[13][14] (about the Freedom Ridersduring the American Civil Rights Movement), before
debuting on Broadway in 1968's all-black version of Hello, Dolly! which also starred Pearl
Bailey and Cab Calloway.
He continued to be involved in theater work and received the Obie Award in 1980 for the title role
in Coriolanus. In 1984, he received his second Obie Award for his role as the preacher in The
Gospel at Colonus. Freeman also won a Drama Desk Award and a Clarence Derwent Award for
his role as a wino in The Mighty Gents. He received his third Obie Award for his role as a
chauffeur for a Jewish widow in Driving Miss Daisy, which was adapted for the screen in 1989.[11]
Career
Freeman at the 10 Items or Less premiere in Madrid with co-star Paz Vega
Freeman and daughter Morgana Freeman at the 1990 Academy Awards
Acting career
Although his first credited film appearance was in 1971's Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow?,
Freeman first became known in the American media through roles on the soap opera Another
World and the PBS kids' show The Electric Company[9] (notably as Easy Reader, Mel Mounds the
DJ, and Vincent the Vegetable Vampire[clip]).
During his tenure with The Electric Company, "(i)t was a very unhappy period in his life,"
according to Joan Ganz Cooney.[15] Freeman himself admitted in an interview that he never thinks
about his tenure with the show at all.[16] Since then, Freeman has considered his Street
Smart (1987) character Fast Black, rather than any of the characters he played in The Electric
Company, to be his breakthrough role.[16][17]
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Freeman began playing prominent supporting roles in many feature
films, earning him a reputation for depicting wise, fatherly characters.[9] As he gained fame, he
went on to bigger roles in films such as the chauffeur Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy, and Sergeant
Major Rawlins in Glory (both in 1989).[9] In 1994, he portrayed Red, the redeemed convict in the
acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption. In the same year he was a member of the jury at
the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.[18]
He also starred in such films as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, Seven, and Deep
Impact. In 1997, Freeman, together with Lori McCreary, founded the film production
company Revelations Entertainment, and the two co-head its sister online film distribution
company ClickStar. Freeman also hosts the channel Our Space on ClickStar, with specially
crafted film clips in which he shares his love for the sciences, especially space exploration and
aeronautics.
After three previous nominationsa supporting actor nomination for Street Smart, and leading
actor nominations for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemptionhe won
the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby at
the 77th Academy Awards.[9] Freeman is recognized for his distinctive voice, making him a
frequent choice for narration. In 2005 alone, he provided narration for two films, War of the
Worlds and the Academy Award-winning documentary film March of the Penguins.
Freeman appeared as God in the hit film Bruce Almighty and its sequel, Evan Almighty, as well
as Lucius Fox in the critical and commercial success Batman Begins and its sequels, The Dark
Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. He starred in Rob Reiner's 2007 film The Bucket List,
opposite Jack Nicholson. He teamed with Christopher Walken and William H. Macy for the
comedy The Maiden Heist, which was released direct to video due to financial problems with the
distribution company. In 2008, Freeman returned to Broadway to co-star with Frances
McDormand and Peter Gallagher for a limited engagement of Clifford Odets's play, The Country
Girl, directed by Mike Nichols.
He had wanted to do a film based on Nelson Mandela for some time. At first he tried to get
Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom adapted into a finished script, but it was not
finalized.[19] In 2007, he purchased the film rights to a book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy:
Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation.[20] Clint Eastwooddirected the Nelson
Mandela bio-pic titled Invictus, starring Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as rugby team
captain Francois Pienaar.[21]
In 2010, Freeman co-starred alongside Bruce Willis in Red.[22] In 2013, Freeman appeared in the
action-thriller Olympus Has Fallen, the science fiction drama Oblivion, and the comedy Last
Vegas. In 2014, he co-starred in the action film Lucy.
In 2015, Freeman played the Chief Justice of the United States in the season two premiere
of Madam Secretary (Freeman is also one of the series' executive producers).
Other work

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Morgan Freeman[2] (born June 1, 1937)[3] is an American actor, producer and narrator.

1Early life and education

6Awards and honors

8Notes and references

Early life and education

Freeman and daughter Morgana Freeman at the 1990 Academy Awards

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