Morgan Freeman

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 (2005–2012), Wanted (2008), RED (2010), Now You See Me (2013), The Lego Movie (2014), and Lucy (2014). He rose to fame as part of the cast of the 1970s children's program The Electric Company. Noted for his deep voice,[4] Freeman has served as a narrator, commentator, and voice actor for numerous programs, series and television shows.[5] He is ranked as the fifth-highest box office star with $4.31 billion in total box office grosses, an average of $74.4 million per film.[6]

Early life and education
Morgan Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the son of Mayme Edna (née Revere; 1912–2000), a teacher,[7] and Morgan Porterfield Freeman,[2] a barber, who died on April 27, 1961. He has three older siblings. According to a DNA analysis, some of his ancestors were from Niger.[8]In 2008, a DNA test suggested that among all of his African ancestors, a little over one-quarter came from the area that stretches from present-day Senegal to Liberia and three-quarters came from the Congo-Angola region.[9] Freeman was sent as an infant to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi.[10][11][12]He moved frequently during his childhood, living in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago, Illinois.[12] When Freeman was 16 years old, he almost died of pneumonia.[13]

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.[14] 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[15] and served as an Automatic Tracking Radar Repairman, rising to the rank of Airman 1st Class.[16]

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.[15] 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[17] (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.[18]

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.[15]

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[12] (notably as Easy Reader, Mel Mounds the DJ, and Vincent the Vegetable Vampire[clip]).

Joan Ganz Cooney claims that Freeman hated doing The Electric Company, saying "it was a very unhappy period in his life."[19] Freeman himself admitted in an interview that he never thinks about his tenure with the show, but he acknowledged that, contrary to Cooney’s claims, he was glad to have been a part of it.[20]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.[20][21]

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Freeman began playing prominent supporting roles in many feature films, earning him a reputation for depicting wise, fatherly characters.[12] 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).[12] 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.[22]

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 nominations - a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Street Smart, and Best Actornominations for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption—he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby at the 77th Academy Awards.[12] 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. He appeared in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy - Batman Begins (2005) and its sequels, The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - as Lucius Fox. 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' 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 Freedomadapted into a finished script, but it was not finalized.[23] 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.[24] Clint Eastwood directed the Nelson Mandela bio-pic titled Invictus, starring Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as rugby team captain Francois Pienaar.[25]

In 2010, Freeman co-starred alongside Bruce Willis in Red.[26] 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
Freeman made his directorial debut in 1993 with Bopha! for Paramount Pictures.

In July 2009, Freeman was one of the presenters at the 46664 Concert celebrating Nelson Mandela's birthday at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Freeman was the first American to record a par on Legend Golf & Safari Resort's Extreme 19th hole.[27]

Effective January 4, 2010, Freeman replaced Walter Cronkite as the voiceover introduction to the CBS Evening News featuring Katie Couricas news anchor.[28] CBS cited the need for consistency in introductions for regular news broadcasts and special reports as the basis for the change.[28] As of 2010, Freeman is the host and narrator of the Discovery Channel television show, focused on physics outreach, Through the Wormhole.[29]

He was featured on the opening track to B.o.B's second album Strange Clouds. The track "Bombs Away" features a prologue and epilogue (which leads into a musical outro) spoken by Freeman. In 2011, Freeman was featured with John Lithgow in the Broadway debut of Dustin Lance Black's play, 8, a staged reenactment of Perry v. Brown, the federal trial that overturned California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. Freeman played Attorney David Boies.[30] The production was held at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York City to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.[31][32]

In 2015 Freeman directed "The Show Must Go On", the season two premiere of Madam Secretary. In 2017, he hosted The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman.

Charitable work
In 2004, Freeman and others formed the Grenada Relief Fund to aid people affected by Hurricane Ivan on the island of Grenada. The fund has since become PLANIT NOW, an organization that seeks to provide preparedness resources for people living in areas afflicted by hurricanes and severe storms.[61] Freeman has worked on narrating small clips for global organizations, such as One Earth,[62] whose goals include raising awareness of environmental issues. He has narrated the clip "Why Are We Here”, which can be viewed on One Earth's website. Freeman has donated money to the Mississippi Horse Park in Starkville, Mississippi. The park is part of Mississippi State Universityand Freeman has several horses that he takes there.[63]

Politics
Freeman endorsed Barack Obama's candidacy for the 2008 presidential election, although he stated that he would not join Obama's campaign.[64] He narrated for The Hall of Presidents with Obama, when he was added to the exhibit.[65][66] The Hall of Presidents re-opened on July 4, 2009, at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.[66] Freeman joined President Bill Clinton, USA Bid Committee Chairman Sunil Gulati, and USMNT midfielder Landon Donovan on December 1, 2010, in Zurich for the U.S. bid committee's final presentation to FIFA for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.[67] On day four of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Morgan Freeman provided the voiceover for the video introduction of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.[68][69]

On September 19, 2017, Freeman featured in a video by the Committee to Investigate Russia group.[70] In the video, Freeman declared "we are at war" with Russia.[71] In April 2018, Freeman met with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.[72]

Comments on racism
In 2005, Freeman criticized the celebration of Black History Month, saying, "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."[73] He opined that the only way to end racism is to stop talking about it, and he noted that there is no "white history month."[73]Freeman once said in an interview with 60 Minutes 's Mike Wallace, "I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."[73][74] Freeman supported the defeated proposal to change the Mississippi state flag, which contains the Confederate battle flag.[75][76] Freeman sparked controversy in 2011 when, on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, he accused the Tea Party movement of racism.[77][78][79]

In reaction to the death of Freddie Gray and the 2015 Baltimore protests, Freeman said he was "absolutely" supportive of the protesters. "That unrest [in Baltimore] has nothing to do with terrorism at all, except the terrorism we suffer from the police. [...] Because of the technology—everybody has a smartphone—now we can see what the police are doing. We can show the world, Look, this is what happened in that situation. So why are so many people dying in police custody? And why are they all black? And why are all the police killing them white? What is that? The police have always said, 'I feared for my safety.' Well, now we know. OK. You feared for your safety while a guy was running away from you, right?"[80]