Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937 in Memphis , Tennessee ) is an American actor , presenter , director , producer and Oscar winner. He is one of the most prominent character actors in Hollywood.
Life
Freeman grew up in Chicago and Los Angeles . There he attended a community college . From 1955 he served as a mechanic in the US Air Force for four years .
In 2008, he broke his arm and elbow in a car accident in Mississippi, USA , and sustained a shoulder injury.
He has a private pilot license and several aircraft, including a Cessna 414 , a Cessna Citation 501 SP and an Emivest Aerospace SJ30 as of 2010 . He also reserved a space flight on Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two .
In July 2012, he donated a million dollars to the super-PAC "Priorities USA Action", a lobby group that campaigned for the re-election of Barack Obama . Freeman justified the donation by saying that "Obama did an extraordinary job in this historically difficult time".
Freeman, who has been divorced twice, has four children.
Career
Beginnings and breakthrough
Freeman played in school plays as a child and won a national acting competition at the age of 12.
At the Pasadena Playhouse , he made his stage debut in the early 1960s in the play The Niggerlovers . A short time later he was in an African-American version of the successful musical Hello, Dolly! to see. Freeman became known nationwide in 1971 with the TV show The Electric Company , in which he embodied "Easy Reader" until 1977.
He received four Obie Awards in the 1980s for his performance in the plays Mother Courage and Her Children , The Gospel at Colonus , Coriolanus and Miss Daisy and Her Chauffeur . The Broadway musical The Mighty Gents earned him a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination. In 1980 he was in Stuart Rosenberg's Brubaker , in 1981 in Peter Yates' The Eyewitness and Malcolm X - Death of a Prophet (Death of a Prophet) . In 1987 he received an Oscar nomination for the film Glitzernder Asphalt . In 1989 Morgan Freeman made her international breakthrough with Miss Daisy and her chauffeur . He had previously played the role of old Miss Daisy's chauffeur, which earned him another Oscar nomination, in the theater.
1990 until today
In the following years he worked in numerous films, including the civil war drama Glory , the satire Purgatory of Vanities , the adventure film Robin Hood - King of Thieves and Merciless in the Late West . In 1993 he first directed the film Bopha! - struggle for freedom , which deals with the apartheid in South Africa employed, a subject on which he previously been a year in the film The Power of One , along with Stephen Dorff worked. In 1994, Freeman starred alongside Tim Robbins in the Stephen King film The Condemned and received his third Academy Award nomination for Best Actor . A year later he took on roles in Wolfgang Petersen's Outbreak - Silent Killer and the thriller Seven by David Fincher . In 1997 he directed the drama Amistad - The Slave Ship and the disaster film Deep Impact, directed by Steven Spielberg .
Other films include The Attack , Dreamcatcher and the comedies Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty , in which he can be seen as God. For Clint Eastwood's film Million Dollar Baby , he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2005. He was also seen in the more recent Batman films Batman Begins , The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises as Lucius Fox, an important ally of the title character.
A frequently recurring theme of his films are the rights of blacks and their oppression (including In the Shine of the Sun , Malcolm X - Death of a Prophet , Miss Daisy and Her Chauffeur , Bopha! - The Fight for Freedom , Amistad - The Slave Ship ) . In 2009, he portrayed the former South African president and anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela in Clint Eastwood's drama Invictus . In 1990 he repeated the quotations of the former slave and later abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the original English version of the television series The American Civil War .
Together with a friend and business partner, Freeman runs the Ground Zero blues club . The Madidi restaurant in Clarksdale (Mississippi), which is also jointly operated , was closed in 2012 after ten years of existence.
Since 2010 he has worked as executive producer , presenter and speaker on the documentary series Morgan Freeman: Mysteries of the Universe . The series deals with the secrets of the universe.
In May 2012, a complaint was made at Time Warner's general meeting of shareholders that Freeman had accused the tea party movement of racism during a promotional appearance for The Dark Knight Rises . Allegedly that reduced the commercial success of the movie My Friend the Dolphin . The filing shareholder runs a right-wing think tank . The film company's board of directors declined to reprimand Freeman.
Dubbing voice
Since The Condemned , Freeman has been dubbed alternately by Klaus Sonnenschein († 2019) and Jürgen Kluckert . Other speakers were Reinhard Brock ( Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty ) or Helmut Krauss († 2019).
Filmography
actor
- 1964: The Pawnbroker (The Pawnbroker)
- 1966: A Man Called Adam
- 1968: Where were you when the lights went out? (Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?)
- 1971–1977: The Electric Company (TV series)
- 1971: Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow!
- 1973: Blade - The Double Bull (Blade)
- 1974: Out to Lunch (TV short film)
- 1978: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (TV movie)
- 1978: Visions: Charlie Smith and the Fritter Tree (TV series, episode)
- 1979: Coriolanus
- 1979: Julius Caesar (short film)
- 1979: Hollow Image (TV movie)
- 1980: Attica - Revolt behind bars (TV movie)
- 1980: Brubaker
- 1981: Malcolm X - Death of a Prophet ( Death of a Prophet , TV Short)
- 1981: The Eyewitness
- 1981: Ryan's Hope (TV series)
- 1981: Love Is My Strongest Weapon ( The Marva Collins Story , Movie made for TV)
- 1982–1984: Another World: Bay City (TV series)
- 1984: Harry & Son (Harry & Son)
- 1984: The Insubordinate (Teachers)
- 1985: The Gospel at Colonus (TV movie)
- 1985: The Atlanta Child Murders (TV series)
- 1985: Marie - A True Story (Marie)
- 1985: That Was Then ... This Is Now
- 1985: Unknown Dimensions ( The Twilight Zone , TV series)
- 1985: The Execution of Raymond Graham , Movie made for TV
- 1986: Final resting ( Resting Place , TV movie)
- 1987: Glistening Asphalt (Street Smart)
- 1987: On a Friday Night ( Fight for Life , TV movie)
- 1988: Tropic War ( Clinton and Nadine , movie made for TV)
- 1988: Addict (Clean and Sober)
- 1989: The tough principal (Lean on Me)
- 1989: Johnny Handsome - The beautiful Johnny
- 1989: Miss Daisy and her chauffeur (Driving Miss Daisy)
- 1989: Glory
- 1990: Bonfire of the Vanities (The Bonfire of the Vanities)
- 1991: Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves
- 1992: The Power of One (The Power of One)
- 1992: Merciless (Unforgiven)
- 1994: The Shawshank Redemption (The Shawshank Redemption)
- 1995: Outbreak - silent killers
- 1995: Seven (Se7en)
- 1996: Moll Flanders - unwilling whore
- 1996: Out of Control (Chain Reaction)
- 1997: ... because they are there to be kissed (Kiss the Girls)
- 1997: Amistad - The slave ship
- 1998: Hard Rain
- 1998: Deep Impact
- 2000: Nurse Betty
- 2000: Under Suspicion - Murderous game (Under Suspicion)
- 2001: Along Came a Spider (Along Came a Spider)
- 2002: High Crimes - On the web of lies (High Crimes)
- 2002: The stop (The Sum of All Fears)
- 2003: Freedom: A History of Us (TV series)
- 2003: Levity
- 2003: Dreamcatcher
- 2003: Bruce Almighty (Bruce Almighty)
- 2003: Guilty by Association
- 2004: Hawaii Crime Story (The Big Bounce)
- 2004: Million Dollar Baby
- 2005: The Journey of the Penguins ( La marche de l'empereur , voice)
- 2005: Unleashed (Danny the Dog)
- 2005: Batman Begins
- 2005: War of the Worlds ( War of the Worlds , Voice)
- 2005: An Unfinished Life
- 2005: Edison - City of Crime
- 2006: Lucky Number Slevin
- 2006: 10 Items or Less - You are who you meet (10 Items or Less)
- 2006: The Contract
- 2007: Evan Almighty (Evan Almighty)
- 2007: Gone Baby Gone - No Child's Play (Gone Baby Gone)
- 2007: Magic of Love (Feast of Love)
- 2007: The best comes at last (The Bucket List)
- 2008: Wanted
- 2008: The Dark Knight
- 2008: A Raisin in the Sun (TV movie, voice)
- 2009: Invictus - Unconquered (Invictus)
- 2009: The Code (Thick as Thieves)
- 2009: Ripe for Break (The Maiden Heist)
- 2010: RED - Older, Harder, Better (RED - Retired. Extremely Dangerous)
- since 2010: Morgan Freeman: Mysteries of the Universe (Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman) (documentary series)
- 2011: Conan (as narrator)
- 2011: My Friend the Dolphin (Dolphin Tale)
- 2012: The Dark Knight Rises
- 2012: The Magic of Belle Isle - An Enchanted Summer (The Magic of Belle Isle)
- 2013: Oblivion
- 2013: Olympus Has Fallen - The world in danger (Olympus Has Fallen)
- 2013: The Unbelievable - Now You See Me (Now You See Me)
- 2013: Last Vegas
- 2014: The LEGO Movie (voice of Vitruvius )
- 2014: Transcendence
- 2014: Lucy
- 2014: My Friend, the Dolphin 2 (Dolphin Tale 2)
- 2014: Ruth & Alex - In Love with New York (5 Flights Up)
- 2015: momentum
- 2015: Last Knights - The Knights of the 7th Order (Last Knights)
- 2015: Ted 2
- 2016: London Has Fallen
- 2016: The Incredibles 2 (Now You See Me 2)
- 2016: Ben Hur
- 2017: leaving with style (going in style)
- 2017: Just Getting Started
- 2018: The Nutcracker and the four kingdoms (The Nutcracker and the Four Realms)
- 2019: Angel Has Fallen
- 2019: The Poison Rose
Executive Producer
- 1999: Mutiny in Port Chicago (Mutiny) (TV movie)
- 2000: Under Suspicion - Murderous Game
- 2001: Along Came a Spider (Along Came a Spider)
- 2003: Levity
- 2006: 10 Items or Less - You are who you meet
- since 2010: Morgan Freeman: Mysteries of the Universe (Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman)
- 2014-2019: Madam Secretary (TV series)
- since 2016: Morgan Freeman's Story of God ( The Story of God with Morgan Freeman , documentary series)
Director
- 1993: Bopha! - fight for freedom (Bopha!)
Awards and nominations (selection)
Result | category | Award | |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | Nominated | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Academy Awards |
Nominated | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | Golden Globes | |
1990 | Nominated | Best Actor in a Leading Role | Academy Awards |
Won | Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical | Golden Globes | |
Nominated | Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role) | American Comedy Awards | |
Won | Best acting team | Berlin International Film Festival | |
1995 | Nominated | Best Actor in a Leading Role | Academy Awards |
Nominated | Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama | Golden Globes | |
Nominated | Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role | Screen Actors Guild Awards | |
2001 | Nominated | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Comedy or Musical | Satellite Awards |
2003 | Nominated | Choice Movie Chemistry | Teen Choice Awards |
Won | Star on the Walk of Fame (Motion Picture) | Walk of Fame | |
2004 | Nominated | Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Box Office Movie | BET Comedy Awards |
2005 | Won | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | Academy Awards |
Nominated | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | Golden Globes | |
Won | Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role | Screen Actors Guild Awards | |
Nominated | Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | Screen Actors Guild Awards | |
2009 | Won | Favorite Cast | People's Choice Awards |
2010 | Nominated | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | Academy Awards |
Nominated | Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama | Golden Globes | |
Nominated | Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role | Screen Actors Guild Awards | |
2012 | Won | Favorite Movie Icon | People's Choice Awards |
2015 | Won | Best Vocal Ensemble in a Feature Film | Behind the Voice Actors Awards |
Nominated | Best Male Vocal Performance in a Feature Film in a Supporting Role | Behind the Voice Actors Awards | |
Nominated | Best Vocal Ensemble in a Feature Film | Behind the Voice Actors Awards |
literature
- Gina De Angelis: Morgan Freeman . New York 1999, ISBN 0-7910-4963-9 .
- Julia Holt, Sandra Woodcock: Morgan Freeman: Real Lives . London 2000, ISBN 0-340-77669-2 .
- Kathleen Tracy: Morgan Freeman: A Biography . Fort Lee 2006, ISBN 1-56980-307-2 .
Web links
- Morgan Freeman in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Morgan Freeman Biography at WHO'S WHO
- Images by Morgan Freeman In: Virtual History
- Morgan Freeman in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
- ↑ Title not visible in the online preview . Interview with Morgan Freeman. In: The New Yorker . tape 54 , no. 20-28 , 1978, pp. 20 (English, snippet view in Google Book Search [accessed September 1, 2019]).
- ↑ Morgan Freeman seriously injured in car accident. In: faz.net. August 5, 2008, accessed August 8, 2019 .
- ↑ $ 7.25 million baby. In: arabianaerospace.aero. April 30, 2010, accessed December 2, 2019 .
- Jump into space - A spaceport is being built in New Mexico. In: spiegel.de. December 13, 2005, accessed May 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Morgan Freeman donates one million dollars to Obama. In: sueddeutsche.de. July 23, 2012, accessed November 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Portrait of a star - Morgan Freeman. In: gala.de. May 19, 2018, accessed August 24, 2019 .
- ^ Morgan Freeman closing Madidi Restaurant in Mississippi. In: thegrio.com. February 29, 2012, accessed April 21, 2019 .
- ↑ Morgan Freeman: Mysteries of the Universe in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Ben Child: Dark Knight Rises imperilled by Morgan Freeman's politics, claims Time Warner shareholder. In: theguardian.com . May 16, 2012, accessed October 12, 2018 .
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Freeman, Morgan |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Freeman, Morgan Porterfield Junior (full name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American actor, director, producer and Oscar winner |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 1, 1937 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Memphis , Tennessee |