Quick Facts
Born:
January 2, 1968, Bronx, New York, U.S. (age 57)
Awards And Honors:
Academy Award (1997)
Academy Award (1997): Actor in a Supporting Role
Notable Works:
“Bayou Caviar”
Married To:
Sara Kapfer (1994–present)
Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):
"Judgment Night" (1993)
"Mancuso, FBI" (1990)
"Norbit" (2007)
"Harold" (2008)
"Machete Kills" (2013)
"Instinct" (1999)
"Rat Race" (2001)
"Sacrifice" (2011)
"Jerry Maguire" (1996)
"As Good as It Gets" (1997)
"Empire" (2015)
"Hero Wanted" (2008)
"Absolute Deception" (2013)
"Dirty" (2005)
"227" (1989)
"Boat Trip" (2002)
"Daddy Day Camp" (2007)
"A Few Good Men" (1992)
"What Love Is" (2007)
"Trading Favors" (1997)
"The Devil's Tomb" (2009)
"Amen" (1988)
"Big Time in Hollywood, FL" (2015)
"MacGyver" (1989–1991)
"The Hit List" (2011)
"Sing" (1989)
"The Fighting Temptations" (2003)
"In the Shadows" (2001)
"Shadowboxer" (2005)
"Linewatch" (2008)
"Hardwired" (2009)
"The Way of War" (2009)
"Gladiator" (1992)
"Judgement" (1992)
"Nasty Boys" (1990)
"Better Days" (1986)
"Zoolander" (2001)
"Chill Factor" (1999)
"Radio" (2003)
"The Book of Negroes" (2015)
"The Bronx Zoo" (1987)
"American Crime Story" (2016)
"Hill Street Blues" (1986–1987)
"Red Tails" (2012)
"Boyz n the Hood" (1991)
"Don Jon" (2013)
"Pearl Harbor" (2001)
"Live-In" (1989)
"What Dreams May Come" (1998)
"Welcome to Hollywood" (1998)
"Wrong Turn at Tahoe" (2009)
"A Murder of Crows" (1998)
"Lies & Illusions" (2009)
"Home on the Range" (2004)
"The Butler" (2013)
"American Horror Story" (2016)
"Forever" (2015)
"American Gangster" (2007)
"Selma" (2014)
"Lightning Jack" (1994)
"Bayou Caviar" (2018)
"Life of a King" (2013)
"Snow Dogs" (2002)
"Freedom" (2014)
"Outbreak" (1995)
"End Game" (2006)
"CBS Schoolbreak Special" (1988)
"Coming to America" (1988)
"Men of Honor" (2000)
"One in the Chamber" (2012)
"Losing Isaiah" (1995)
Movies/Tv Shows (Directed):
"Bayou Caviar" (2018)
Movies/Tv Shows (Writing/Creator):
"Bayou Caviar" (2018)

Cuba Gooding, Jr. (born January 2, 1968, Bronx, New York, U.S.) is an American actor who was perhaps best known for his scene-stealing performance as a professional football player who is the only loyal client of a sports agent played by Tom Cruise in the blockbuster film Jerry Maguire (1996). Gooding earned an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance.

Gooding’s parents were both singers, and his father, Cuba Gooding, Sr., was the lead singer of the R&B group the Main Ingredient, which had a major hit in 1972 with the song “Everybody Plays the Fool.” The family moved to Los Angeles about that time, but Gooding’s father left the family two years later. Gooding began break dancing in the early 1980s, and he was one of the break-dancers who performed behind singer Lionel Richie at the closing ceremony for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. He also appeared in television commercials, and in the mid-1980s he began getting small parts on such TV shows as Hill Street Blues (1981–87) and The Bronx Zoo (1987–88). Gooding made his feature film debut in a bit part in Coming to America (1988). He won notice for his portrayal of Tre Styles, one of the lead characters in John Singleton’s debut film, Boyz n the Hood (1991). Gooding’s most notable subsequent films were A Few Good Men (1992) and Outbreak (1995), and he also appeared in the 1995 television movie The Tuskegee Airmen. Gooding’s performance in Jerry Maguire as football player Rod Tidwell, a family man who struggles to find the balance between his personal values and the expectations of his profession, brought him critical praise and a nomination for a Golden Globe Award in addition to the Oscar.

Following his award, Gooding played a variety of characters, including a gay art dealer in As Good as It Gets (1997) and the spirit guide of the character portrayed by Robin Williams in What Dreams May Come (1998). He appeared in the badly reviewed thrillers A Murder of Crows (1998) and Instinct (1999) and won praise for his performance in the lead role of the biopic Men of Honor (2000) and as heroic petty officer Dorie Miller in Pearl Harbor (2001). In 2003 he costarred with Beyoncé in the comedy The Fighting Temptations and played the mentally disabled title character in Radio.

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His subsequent career consisted largely of lead roles in minor and direct-to-video films, with some notable exceptions. Gooding appeared in American Gangster (2007), portrayed neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the television movie Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009), costarred with Terrence Howard in the war thriller Red Tails (2012), played a worker in the White House kitchen in Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), and portrayed civil-rights lawyer Fred Gray in Ava DuVernay’s Selma (2014). Gooding also appeared in the 2015 TV miniseries The Book of Negroes and portrayed O.J. Simpson in the acclaimed TV series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016). He later cowrote, directed, and starred in Bayou Caviar (2018). In the romantic drama Life in a Year (2020), Gooding played a father whose son wants to be a rapper.

In the early 21st century, Gooding faced numerous accusations of unwanted sexual advances. In 2019 he was charged with groping a woman, and two other alleged incidents led to additional charges. In 2022 Gooding pleaded guilty to one count of forcible touching; if he followed the terms of the deal, he would receive no prison time. The actor also faced other legal difficulties. Notably, in 2020 a woman filed a civil suit against Gooding, accusing him of raping her in 2013. A default judgment was granted to the plaintiff in 2021 after Gooding failed to respond to the suit. However, that decision was later set aside.

Patricia Bauer The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Quick Facts
In full:
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr.
Born:
December 28, 1954, Mount Vernon, New York, U.S. (age 70)
Awards And Honors:
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2025)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022)
Tony Awards (2010)
Academy Award (2002)
Academy Award (1990)
Academy Award (2002): Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Award (1990): Actor in a Supporting Role
Cecil B. DeMille Award (2016)
Golden Globe Award (2000): Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Golden Globe Award (1990): Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Tony Award (2010): Best Actor in a Play
Married To:
Pauletta Washington (1983–present)
Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):
"Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995)
"Fallen" (1998)
"Training Day" (2001)
"Unstoppable" (2010)
"Cry Freedom" (1987)
"John Q" (2002)
"The Magnificent Seven" (2016)
"Fences" (2016)
"Remember the Titans" (2000)
"The Equalizer" (2014)
"The Equalizer 2" (2018)
"Crimson Tide" (1995)
"Great Performances" (1992)
"Out of Time" (2003)
"The Mighty Quinn" (1989)
"Roman J. Israel, Esq." (2017)
"Much Ado About Nothing" (1993)
"Courage Under Fire" (1996)
"Philadelphia" (1993)
"Man on Fire" (2004)
"Safe House" (2012)
"The Hurricane" (1999)
"A Soldier's Story" (1984)
"2 Guns" (2013)
"He Got Game" (1998)
"Flight" (2012)
"The Great Debaters" (2007)
"Malcolm X" (1992)
"The Manchurian Candidate" (2004)
"Carbon Copy" (1981)
"Mo' Better Blues" (1990)
"The Pelican Brief" (1993)
"Antwone Fisher" (2002)
"The Preacher's Wife" (1996)
"Power" (1986)
"Deja Vu" (2006)
"For Queen & Country" (1988)
"The Siege" (1998)
"The Taking of Pelham 123" (2009)
"Ricochet" (1991)
"Glory" (1989)
"American Gangster" (2007)
"Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child" (1995–1997)
"Virtuosity" (1995)
"St. Elsewhere" (1982–1988)
"Inside Man" (2006)
"The Book of Eli" (2010)
"The Bone Collector" (1999)
"Mississippi Masala" (1991)
"Heart Condition" (1990)
Movies/Tv Shows (Directed):
"Antwone Fisher" (2002)
"The Great Debaters" (2007)
"Fences" (2016)
"Grey's Anatomy" (2016)
Top Questions

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Denzel Washington (born December 28, 1954, Mount Vernon, New York, U.S.) is an American actor celebrated for his engaging and powerful performances. Throughout his career he has been regularly praised by critics, and his consistent success at the box office helped to dispel the outdated perception that African American actors could not draw mainstream white audiences. Washington won Academy Awards for his work in Glory (1989) and Training Day (2001).

Early life and education

Washington is named after his father, who was a Pentecostal minister in the Church of God in Christ, Inc. His mother, Lennis Washington, was a beautician who owned and operated several salons. His parents divorced when he was 14 years old, and his mother sent him to a military boarding school in upstate New York for high school.

Washington enrolled at Fordham University, initially as a premed major but changed his focus to journalism before deciding to join the theater program, where he had lead roles in student productions of The Emperor Jones and Othello. After graduating with a B.A. in 1977, Washington pursued further acting studies at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where he stayed for a year before moving back to New York City. He had several successful stage performances in these years, most notably in A Soldier’s Play, for which he shared an Obie Award for distinguished ensemble performance in 1982.

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First years in Hollywood

Washington’s first film roles were in the TV movies Wilma (1977) and Flesh & Blood (1979). His regular screen debut was in the comedy Carbon Copy (1981). He first began to receive national attention for his work as Dr. Phillip Chandler on the popular television drama St. Elsewhere (1982–88). For the film Cry Freedom (1987), he portrayed South African activist Stephen Biko, and he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. Two years later he won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance as a formerly enslaved man fighting in the Union army in the American Civil War film Glory (1989).

Superstardom: Malcolm X and Training Day

Washington’s astonishing skill and range as an actor and his popular appeal as a leading man were firmly established in the 1990s. He gave memorable performances in the romantic comedy Mississippi Masala (1991), the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing (1993), alongside Tom Hanks in the courtroom drama Philadelphia (1993), the hard-boiled mystery Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and the military thriller Crimson Tide (1995). The latter was the first of several popular movies he made with director Tony Scott.

During this time he also frequently worked with director Spike Lee, starring in Mo’ Better Blues (1990), He Got Game (1998), and most significantly Malcolm X (1992). Portraying the civil rights activist Malcolm X, Washington gave a complex and powerful performance and earned an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He received a second best-actor nomination for his portrayal of boxer Rubin Carter in Norman Jewison’s The Hurricane (1999).

In Training Day (2001), Washington played a corrupt and violent police detective who is assigned a young police officer (Ethan Hawke) to teach. Washington’s menacing and charismatic performance earned him an Oscar for best actor, making him only the second African American actor (the first was Sidney Poitier) to win the award. After starring in director Jonathan Demme’s 2004 update of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, Washington reteamed with Lee for the crime drama Inside Man (2006). He later appeared as a drug kingpin opposite Russell Crowe’s determined narcotics officer in American Gangster (2007) and as a dispatcher caught in the middle of a subway train hijacking in Scott’s The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009).

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Later movies: The Book of Eli, Flight, and Roman J. Israel, Esq.

In 2010 Washington starred in the postapocalyptic action drama The Book of Eli and collaborated again with Scott on the action thriller Unstoppable. He subsequently portrayed a rogue CIA agent in South Africa in the spy thriller Safe House (2012) before giving an Oscar-nominated performance in Flight (2012) as a heroic airplane pilot hiding a substance-abuse problem. The action comedy 2 Guns, in which Washington was cast as a covert drug-enforcement operative, followed in 2013. After playing Robert McCall, a mysterious vigilante, in the action thriller The Equalizer (2014), Washington appeared in The Magnificent Seven (2016), a remake of the 1960 classic western.

In 2017 he starred in Roman J. Israel, Esq., portraying an idealistic Los Angeles lawyer who begins to question his principles. For his performance, Washington received his eighth Oscar nomination for acting. He then reprised his role as Robert McCall in The Equalizer 2 (2018). In the crime drama The Little Things (2021) he played a detective hunting a serial killer.

Also in 2021 Washington starred with Frances McDormand in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Joel Coen’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Washington received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of the titular character. By this time Washington was frequently being characterized as one of the most important film actors of all time, and in 2020 The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century, with the newspaper’s critic A.O. Scott writing that Washington is “beyond category: a screen titan who is also a subtle and sensitive craftsman, with serious old-school stage training and blazing movie-star presence.”

In 2024 Washington portrayed a ruthless weapons dealer and gladiator owner loosely based on the historical figure Macrinus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.

Additionally, Washington directed and appeared in the biographical films Antwone Fisher (2002), about a U.S. serviceman with a troubled past, and The Great Debaters (2007), which centers on an inspirational debate coach at an African American college in the 1930s. He also helmed A Journal for Jordan (2021), a drama based on a true story about a journalist’s romantic relationship with a soldier.

Stage work

In addition to his film work, Washington has continued to occasionally act onstage. He made his Broadway debut in 1988 in Ron Milner’s Checkmates. In 2005 he starred as Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Five years later he appeared in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Fences, a family drama set in the 1950s that explores issues of identity and racism. For his performance, Washington won a Tony Award in 2010. He later directed and starred in a film adaptation (2016) of the play, and his performance earned him an Oscar nomination. In 2018 he returned to Broadway as Hickey in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. Washington later starred as the title character in a modern retelling of Othello. The production, which also featured Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago, was a critical and commercial success.

Awards and honors

In 2016 Washington received the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe Award for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment”). He later was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022) by Pres. Joe Biden. However, owing to an illness, Washington was unable to attend the ceremony, and he did not officially receive the medal until 2025.

Personal life

Washington married Pauletta Pearson in 1983, and the couple have four children. Their eldest child, John David Washington, is an acclaimed actor who notably starred in BlacKkKlansman (2018), directed by his father’s old collaborator, Spike Lee.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.