Where is Denzel Washington from?

Denzel Washington was born on December 28, 1954, in Mount Vernon, New York.

Lennis "Lynne," the mother of Denzel, was a New Yorker who was raised in Harlem and Georgia. She owned and operated a beauty salon. His father, ordained Pentecostal minister Denzel Hayes Washington Sr., was a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, and worked for the New York City Water Department as well as a nearby S. Klein department store. Until 1968, Washington attended Mount Vernon's Pennington-Grimes Elementary School. His mother enrolled him in the exclusive prep school Oakland Military Academy in New Windsor, New York, when he was 14 years old, as a result of his parents' divorce.

Following Oakland, he spent 1970–1971 as a student at Mainland High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. In 1977, he graduated with a BA in journalism and drama from Fordham University. He participated in collegiate basketball at Fordham as a guard for coach P.J. Carlesimo. After taking part in a staff talent show for the campers, a colleague encouraged him to give acting a try.

When he returned to Fordham that fall with a new sense of purpose, Washington enrolled in the acting program at the Lincoln Center campus, where he was chosen for the lead roles in both Shakespeare's “Othello” and Eugene O'Neill's “The Emperor Jones.”

Who is Denzel Washington?

An American actor and director with a four-decade-long career is Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. In addition to numerous honors, Washington has also won a Tony Award, two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Silver Bears.

He was given the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and was termed the "greatest actor of the 21st century" by The New York Times in 2020. In 2022, President Joe Biden awarded Washington the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For his performance in the 2010 Broadway revival of the August Wilson play "Fences," he received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Later, in 2016, Washington co-wrote, produced, and directed the film adaptation, which received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Washington.

Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" was adapted into a movie, which was also produced by Washington in 2020. His stage credits include performances in the Broadway revivals of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" in 2018 and Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" in 2014.

When did Denzel Washington debut?

Washington made his screen acting debut in the 1977 made-for-television movie "Wilma," a docudrama about sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and made his first Hollywood appearance in the 1981 movie "Carbon Copy," both of which were released not long after he graduated from Fordham. Washington received a significant career boost when he was cast as Dr. Phillip Chandler in the 1982–1988 television hospital drama "St. Elsewhere" on NBC. He was one of just a handful of African-American actors who appeared in the show for all six of its seasons.

In addition, he played a number of roles on television, in movies, and on stage, including "A Soldier's Story" (1984), "Hard Lessons" (1986), and "Power" (1986). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as South African anti-apartheid political activist Stephen Biko in Richard Attenborough's "Cry Freedom" in 1987.

Washington won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1989 for his performance as a defiant, self-assured former slave soldier in the movie "Glory." He starred as the conflicted and disheartened Reuben James in the films "The Mighty Quinn" and "For Queen and Country" that same year.

What is the filmography of Denzel Washington?

Denzel Washington's filmography is as follows:

• Carbon Copy (1981)

• A Soldier's Story (1984)

• Power (1986)

• Cry Freedom (1987)

• For Queen and Country (1988)

• The Mighty Quinn (1989)

• Glory (1989)

• Heart Condition (1990)

• Mo' Better Blues (1990)

• Mississippi Masala (1991)

• Ricochet (1991)

• Malcolm X (1992)

• Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

• The Pelican Brief (1993)

• Philadelphia (1993)

• Crimson Tide (1995)

• Virtuosity (1995)

• Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

• Courage Under Fire (1996)

• The Preacher's Wife (1996)

• Fallen (1998)

• He Got Game (1998)

• The Siege (1998)

• The Bone Collector (1999)

• The Hurricane (1999)

• Remember the Titans (2000)

• Training Day (2001)

• John Q. (2002)

• Antwone Fisher (2002)

• Out of Time (2003)

• Man on Fire (2004)

• The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

• Inside Man (2006)

• Déjà Vu (2006)

• American Gangster (2007)

• The Great Debaters (2007)

• The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

• The Book of Eli (2010)

• Unstoppable (2010)

• Safe House (2012)

• Flight (2012)

• 2 Guns (2013)

• The Equalizer (2014)

• The Magnificent Seven (2016)

• Fences (2016)

• Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

• The Equalizer 2 (2018)

• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

• The Little Things (2021)

• The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

• A Journal for Jordan (2021)

• The Equalizer 3 (2023) - Film not released yet.