$250,000,000
Morgan Freeman
Net Worth
Born in (City)
Memphis, Tennesee
Born in (Country)
United States of America
Date of Birth
01st December, 1937
Date of Death
-
Mother
Mayme Edna
Father
Morgan Porterfield Freeman
Children
- Alfonso Freeman
- Saifoulaye Freeman
- Deena Freeman
- Morgana Freeman
About
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, director and narrator. He has appeared in a range of film genres portraying character roles and is particularly known for his distinctive deep voice. American actor whose emotional depth, subtle humour, and versatility made him one of the most respected performers of his generation. Over a career that included numerous memorable performances on stage, screen, and television, Freeman was one of the few African American actors who consistently received roles that were not specifically written for Black actors. Freeman is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Early Life
Morgan Freeman was born on June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the son of Mayme Edna, a teacher and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber, who died of cirrhosis in 1961. He has three older siblings. As an infant, Freeman was sent to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi. He moved frequently during his childhood, living in Greenwood, Mississippi, Gary, Indiana, and finally Chicago, Illinois. When Freeman was 16 years old, he contracted pneumonia. He 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. At age 12, he won a statewide drama competition, and while still in high school, he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Road to Success
As a young man, Freeman had aspirations of being a fighter pilot; however, a stint in the air force (1955–59) proved disappointing, and he turned his attention to acting. He made his Broadway debut in an all-Black production of Hello Dolly! in 1967. In the 1970s, he continued to work on the stage and also appeared on the educational children’s television show The Electric Company as the character Easy Reader. Freeman’s performance in the film Brubaker (1980) and on the soap opera Another World (1982–84), along with several enthusiastic reviews for his theatrical work in the early 1980s, led to more challenging film roles. His portrayal of a dangerous hustler in Street Smart (1987) earned Freeman his first Academy Award nomination, for best-supporting actor. He was later nominated for a best-actor Oscar for his work in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), in which he re-created the role of Hoke after first performing it onstage. He evinced a disciplinarian principal in Lean on Me (1989), a hard-hearted Civil War soldier in Glory (1989), and an ageing gunslinger in Unforgiven (1992). He made his directorial debut with the antiapartheid film Bopha! (1993). A third Oscar nomination came for his soulful turn as a convict in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Freeman later appeared in several crime dramas, including Se7en (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and Along Came a Spider (2001)—the latter two based on James Patterson novels—as well as The Sum of All Fears (2002). He won an Academy Award for best-supporting actor for his performance as a former boxer in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004). Freeman reprised the latter role in the sequels The Dark Knight Rises Knight (2008) and (2012). In Rob Reiner’s The Bucket List (2007), he and Jack Nicholson played terminally ill cancer patients who make the most of their remaining time. In 2008 Freeman returned to Broadway after nearly 20 years away from the stage, taking the role of Frank Elgin, a talented yet dispirited actor who has lost the will to perform, in The Country Girl. The following year he reteamed with Eastwood on Invictus, a drama in which he played Nelson Mandela, who sought to unite divided South Africa by supporting the national rugby team’s quest to win the 1995 World Cup. Freeman later appeared as a former CIA agent in the action-comedy Red (2010); as a high-ranking U.S. politician in the thriller Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and its sequels, London Has Fallen (2016) and Angel Has Fallen (2019) and as a postapocalyptic survivalist in the science-fiction adventure Oblivion (2013). He also played a magician who exposes the tradecraft of his confreres in Now You See Me (2013) and its 2016 sequel. Freeman went for laughs in the buddy comedy Last Vegas (2013), in which he starred opposite Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, and Kevin Kline. He later voiced a wizard in The LEGO Movie (2014), a computer-animated adventure that featured renderings of LEGO toys as the characters and settings. His other roles in 2014 included an anti-artificial-intelligence activist in Transcendence and a psychology professor in Lucy. Freeman’s later films included the comedies Ted2 (2015); Going in Style (2017), a remake of the 1979 film about retirees who plan a bank heist; and Just Getting Started (2017), in which two rivals at a retirement community team up to save the woman of both their affections from her kidnappers. He later portrayed the toymaker Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018), an adaptation of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 19th-century ballet.
Challenges
In 2004, Freeman helped form 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 affected by hurricanes and severe storms. In 2014, he narrated a clip titled What's Possible, which debuted at the United Nations climate summit. Freeman has donated to the Mississippi Horse Park in Starkville, Mississippi, part of Mississippi State University and Freeman has several horses that he takes there. During the 2008 presidential election, Freeman endorsed Barack Obama's presidential bid, although he said he would not join Obama's campaign. He provided the voice of Barack Obama for Disney World's The Hall of Presidents when the president was added to the exhibit and The Hall of Presidents re-opened on July 4, 2009, at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. On day four of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Freeman provided the voiceover for the video introduction of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Failures
Freeman was married to Jeanette Adair Bradshaw from October 22, 1967, until November 18, 1979, and subsequently married Myrna Colley-Lee on June 16, 1984.The couple separated in December 2007 and divorced on September 15, 2010. Freeman has four children: Alfonso, Deena, Morgana and Saifoulaye. Freeman and Colley-Lee adopted Freeman's step-granddaughter from his first marriage, Edena Hines, and raised her together. On August 16, 2015, 33-year old Hines was murdered in New York City. Freeman resides in Charleston, Mississippi, and maintains a home in New York City. He earned a private pilot's license at age 65. and owns or has owned at least three private aircraft, including a Cessna Citation 501, a Cessna 414 twin-engine prop and an Emivest SJ30. On May 24, 2018, CNN published an investigation in which eight women accused Freeman of being "overly flirtatious" by "making inappropriate comments" while on the set of films or at his production company. In response, Freeman issued an apology; "Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows I am not someone who would intentionally offend or knowingly make anyone feel uneasy. I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected that was never my intent."
Achievements
Nominated for Best Supporting actor in "Street Smart" for Academy Awards and Golden Globe|Nominated for Best Actor in "Driving Miss Daisy" for Academy Awards and won the best actor for a musical/comedy award in Golden Globe|Nominated for Best Actor in "The Shawshank Redemption" for Academy Awards and Golden Globe|Nominated for Best Supporting actor in "Million Dollar Baby" for Golden Globes and won the best supporting actor category at Academy Awards|Nominated for Best Actor in "Invictus" for Academy Awards and Golden Globe|AFI Life Achievement Award (2011)|Cecil B. DeMille Award (2012)|Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award (2018)
Quotes
- I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.
- Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance.