Laurence Fishburne
Laurence John Fishburne III[1] (born July 30, 1961, usually credited as Larry Fishburne until 1993) is an American actor. He is a three time Emmy Award and Tony Award winning actor known for his roles on stage and screen. He has been hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative characters in his films.[2] He is known for playing Morpheus in The Matrix series (1999–2003), Jason "Furious" Styles in the John Singleton drama film Boyz n the Hood (1991), Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller in Francis Ford Coppola's war film Apocalypse Now (1979), and "The Bowery King" in the John Wick film series (2017–present).
Laurence Fishburne
For his portrayal of Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), Fishburne was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Two Trains Running (1992), and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in TriBeCa (1993). Fishburne became the first African American to portray Othello on film when he appeared in Oliver Parker's 1995 film adaptation of the Shakespeare play. He has also received five Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. He received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead nomination for his performance in Deep Cover (1992).
Other film credits of Fishburne include Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (1985), Spike Lee's School Daze (1988), Abel Ferrara's King of New York (1990), Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (2011), and Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying (2017). He has also gained a wider audience with the blockbuster films Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). On television, he starred as Dr. Raymond Langston on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008–2011), as Special Agent Jack Crawford in the NBC thriller series Hannibal (2013–2015), and as Earl "Pops" Johnson in the ABC sitcom Black-ish (2014–2022). He is currently starring in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's play American Buffalo alongside Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss.
Early life
Fishburne was born in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Hattie Bell (née Crawford), a junior high school mathematics and science teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer.[3] After his parents divorced during his childhood, he moved with his mother to Brooklyn, New York, where he was raised. His father saw him once a month.[4][5] Fishburne is a graduate of Lincoln Square Academy in New York, which closed in the 1980s.[6]
Career
1972–1989
For most of his early career, he was credited as Larry Fishburne. In 1972, at the age of 11, Fishburne received positive reviews for his first acting role[7] in the initial ABC Theater teleplay If You Give a Dance You Gotta Pay the Band.[8][9][10] Soon after, Fishburne portrayed Joshua Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live.[11] His most memorable childhood role was in Cornbread, Earl and Me,[12] in which he played a young boy who witnessed the police shooting of a popular high school basketball star. He later earned a supporting role in Apocalypse Now, in which he played Tyrone Miller, a cocky 17-year-old Gunner's Mate 3rd Class from the Bronx, nicknamed Mr. Clean. When production began in March 1976, he was just 14 years old, having lied about his age to get the part. Filming took so long that he actually was 17 years old upon its completion.[11][13]
Fishburne spent much of the 1980s in and out of television and periodically on stage. In the early 1980s, he worked as a bouncer at punk rock clubs, such as Cathay de Grande.[14] He appeared in the early 1980s movies Band of the Hand, Death Wish 2 and The Cotton Club, and had a minor role in the critically acclaimed Steven Spielberg film The Color Purple.[15] Fishburne had a recurring role as Cowboy Curtis on Paul Reubens' CBS children's television series Pee-wee's Playhouse.[11] He also appeared in the M*A*S*H episode, "The Tooth Shall Set You Free". In Spenser: For Hire, he was a guest star for the second-season episode "Personal Demons". He also appeared alongside Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver.[16] His stage work during the 1980s included Short Eyes (1984), and Loose Ends (1987), both produced at Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Also in 1987 he played a part in the third A Nightmare on Elm Street film as a hospital orderly.[11] Fishburne featured in Red Heat (1988) beside Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi.[17] Fishburne also starred as "Dap" in Spike Lee's School Daze (1988). Fishburne's character was a depiction of an African American, culturally inclined college student at a historically black college.[18]
Personal life
Fishburne married actress Hajna O. Moss in 1985,[3] in New York. They have two children, son Langston (born 1987)[3] and daughter Montana Fishburne (born 1991).[3][59][60] Hajna and Laurence divorced in the 1990s.[6]
Fishburne dated actress Victoria Dillard from 1992 to 1995.[61]
Fishburne met actress Gina Torres and they were engaged in February 2001 and married on September 22, 2002,[62] at The Cloisters museum in New York City. On January 8, 2007, Fishburne's spokesman Alan Nierob announced the couple were expecting their first child together.[63][64] A daughter, Delilah, was born to the couple in June 2007.[65]
On September 20, 2017, it was confirmed that Torres and Fishburne were separated and had been keeping the separation private for the last year.[66] Fishburne filed for divorce on November 2, 2017,[67] and the divorce was finalized effective May 11, 2018, after Torres and Fishburne reached a final settlement on April 16, 2018.[68]
Fishburne lives in Hollywood, and also maintains a residence in New York City, in the Castle Village Co-Op in the Hudson Heights section of Washington Heights.[69] He is a fan of Brazilian author Paulo Coelho and plans to produce a movie based on his novel The Alchemist.[70]