Denzel Washington

DENZEL WASHINGTONTall strikingly handsome and charismatic leading man of films and television in the 1980s and 1990s, Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. was born December 28th 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He was the middle child of the three children of a Pentecostal minister father and a beautician. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University intent on a career in journalism. However he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions and upon graduating he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory theatre. He left A.C.T after only one year to seek work as an actor.

With his acting versatility and powerful sexual presence, he had no difficulty finding work in numerous television productions. He made his first big screen appearance in Carbon Copy (1981) with George Seagal. Through the 1980s he worked in both movies and television and was chosen for the plum role of Dr. Chandler in NBC's hit medical series "St Elsewhere" (1982), a role that he would play for six years. In 1987 he stared in Richard Attenborough's "Cry Freedom", where he played South African Anti-Apartheid political activist Steve Biko, for which he was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar. Then in 1989 he won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his powerful portrayal of Tripp, the runaway slave in Edward Zwick's historical masterpiece "Glory" (1989). In 1992 Washington played one of his most critically acclaimed roles in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X", for which he received an Oscar nomination.

He soon became a respected and admired actor and throughout the 1990s Denzel co-starred alongside such actors as Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, and Gene Hackman respectively in such big budget productions as "The Pelican Brief" (1993), Philadelphia (1993), and Crimson Tide (1995). Other films included "The Preacher's Wife" (1996), and "Courage Under Fire" (1996) - a role for which he was payed $10 million, while in 2001 he became the second African-American (after Sidney Poitier) to win the best actor Oscar for "Training Day." Cerebral and meticulous in his film work, he made his debut as a director with "Antwone Fisher" (2002) and also directed and starred in "The Great Debaters" in 2007. He lives quietly in Los Angeles with his wife Pauletta and their four children.