Denzel Washington
1954

Washington, Denzel (b. December 28, 1954, Mount Vernon, N.Y.), Academy Award-winning American actor.

Denzel Washington grew up in the middle class family of a Pentecostal minister and a beauty shop owner. Washington won a small role in the 1977 television movie Wilma, a film about Olympic star Wilma Rudolph, before he graduated from Fordham University in 1977 with a B.A. degree in journalism. After graduating, Washington pursued acting professionally, studying drama at the American Conservatory in San Francisco, California.

Washington first achieved recognition for his stage performances. His portrayal of Malcolm X in Chickens Coming Home to Roost and Private Peterson in the Obie Award-winning A Soldier's Play won Washington critical acclaim for carefully chosen roles that resisted Hollywood's stereotypical options for blacks (see Racial Stereotypes). Washington's stage performances led to a role in the popular television drama St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988, in which he played the dedicated Dr. Philip Chandler. In 1984, Washington began his successful transition from television to film (see Film, Blacks in American) when critics praised his reprisal of the Private Peterson role in A Soldier's Story, the screen adaptation of A Soldier's Play.

By the end of the 1980s, Washington had become one of Hollywood's most critically and commercially successful actors. He has received three Academy Award nominations, twice for best supporting actor (Cry Freedom, 1987, and Glory, 1990, for which he won), once for best actor as Malcolm X in Spike Lee's film of the same name. In addition to his collaborations with Lee (Malcolm X, 1992, and Mo' Better Blues, 1990), Washington has worked with some of film's most respected directors, including Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia, 1993) and Kenneth Brannagh (Much Ado About Nothing, 1993). He recently solidified his leading-man status with his role opposite Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife, a remake of a Cary Grant film.

Contributed By:
Robert Fay