Courtney B. Vance
Encyclopedia
Courtney Bernard Vance is an American actor. He was formerly a regular on the NBC
/USA
television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent
as Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver
. He was also a series regular on the ABC
series FlashForward. As of 2011, he appears on the TNT
series The Closer
as Chief
Tommy Delk.
, Michigan
, the son of Leslie, a librarian, and Conroy Vance, a grocery store manager and benefits administrator. He attended Detroit Country Day School
, a fee-paying university-preparatory school
, and later graduated from Harvard University
with a bachelor of arts degree
. While attending Harvard, Vance was already working as an actor at the Boston Shakespeare Company. He earned a Master of Fine Arts
degree later at Yale School of Drama
where he met future wife and fellow student Angela Bassett
.
nominations, each in Tony Award-winning productions. He was first nominated for his role in August Wilson
's Pulitzer Prize
-winning play Fences and later for his lead role in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation. In 1987 he won a Clarence Derwent Award
for his appearance as Cory Maxson in Fences.
Prior to joining the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
, Vance appeared on the original Law & Order
series twice: in a minor role in the first-season episode "By Hooker, By Crook", and in a major role in the fifth season episode "Rage".
Vance's feature film
roles have won him steady praise. His early credits include Hamburger Hill
, The Hunt for Red October
, The Last Supper, Dangerous Minds
, and The Adventures of Huck Finn
. More recently, he appeared in Robert Altman
's Cookie's Fortune
, Penny Marshall
's The Preacher's Wife
, and in Clint Eastwood
's Space Cowboys
. Vance also starred in the independent film
Love and Action in Chicago
, a romantic comedy which he also co-produced. Vance played Black Panther Bobby Seale
in the Melvin
and Mario Van Peebles
docudrama Panther
. In 2008 and 2009 he guest starred in the final season of ER
alongside his wife, Angela Bassett
.
Vance's television credits include such cable
movies as:
On December 2, 2008, TV Guide
reported that Vance has been cast as the Los Angeles bureau chief of the FBI in the new ABC
pilot FlashForward, which is based on a Robert J. Sawyer
novel and is said to be a possible “companion show” to Lost
. Vance is set for the lead in the German-American apocalypse thriller The Divide
.
Vance has also provided the voiceover for the National Football League
's "You Want the NFL, Go to the NFL" television spots.
. The couple's first children are twins
, son Slater Josiah and daughter Bronwyn Golden, born on January 27, 2006. He and Bassett have authored a book, Friends: A Love Story. The two also participate in the annual Christmas celebration, Candlelight Processional
, at Epcot.
Vance is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center
in New York City
. Vance is an active supporter of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He is an alumnus of the Detroit Boys & Girls Club, and was recently inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame for all of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
/USA
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...
as Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver
Ron Carver
Ron Carver is a fictional character on the NBC-USA Network series, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, played by Courtney B. Vance.Carver often works in conjunction with detectives Robert Goren, Alexandra Eames, Mike Logan and Carolyn Barek of the Major Case Squad. He graduated from John Jay College of...
. He was also a series regular on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
series FlashForward. As of 2011, he appears on the TNT
Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...
series The Closer
The Closer
The Closer is an American crime drama, starring Kyra Sedgwick as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, a Georgia police detective who often closes her cases using sometimes-questionable methods...
as Chief
Chief of police
A Chief of Police is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
Tommy Delk.
Early life
Courtney B. Vance was born in DetroitDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, the son of Leslie, a librarian, and Conroy Vance, a grocery store manager and benefits administrator. He attended Detroit Country Day School
Detroit Country Day School
Detroit Country Day School is a private, secular school located in four campuses in Oakland County, Michigan, north of Detroit. The administrative offices, facility services, safety and security services, and the upper school are located in a campus in Beverly Hills, along with the middle school...
, a fee-paying university-preparatory school
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
, and later graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
with a bachelor of arts degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
. While attending Harvard, Vance was already working as an actor at the Boston Shakespeare Company. He earned a Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
degree later at Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
where he met future wife and fellow student Angela Bassett
Angela Bassett
Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
.
Career
Vance has earned two Tony AwardTony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nominations, each in Tony Award-winning productions. He was first nominated for his role in August Wilson
August Wilson
August Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...
's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning play Fences and later for his lead role in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation. In 1987 he won a Clarence Derwent Award
Clarence Derwent Awards
The Clarence Derwent Awards are theatre awards given annually by the Actors' Equity Association on Broadway in the United States and by Equity, the performers union, in the West End in the United Kingdom....
for his appearance as Cory Maxson in Fences.
Prior to joining the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...
, Vance appeared on the original Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
series twice: in a minor role in the first-season episode "By Hooker, By Crook", and in a major role in the fifth season episode "Rage".
Vance's feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
roles have won him steady praise. His early credits include Hamburger Hill
Hamburger Hill
Hamburger Hill is a 1987 American war film about the actual assault of the U.S. Army's 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division 'Screaming Eagles', on a well-fortified position, including trenchworks and bunkers, of the North Vietnamese Army on Ap Bia...
, The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October (film)
The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. It was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan...
, The Last Supper, Dangerous Minds
Dangerous Minds
Dangerous Minds is an American drama film based on the autobiography My Posse Don't Do Homework by former U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson, who took up a teaching position at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California, where most of her students were African-American and Hispanic teenagers from East...
, and The Adventures of Huck Finn
The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993 film)
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a 1993 Disney adventure film starring Elijah Wood and Courtney B. Vance; it is based on Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, though it focuses almost exclusively on the first half of the book...
. More recently, he appeared in Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
's Cookie's Fortune
Cookie's Fortune
Cookie's Fortune is a 1999 comedy film directed by Robert Altman and starring an ensemble cast, including Patricia Neal, Charles S. Dutton, Julianne Moore, Glenn Close, Liv Tyler and Chris O'Donnell...
, Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall is an American actress, producer and director.After playing several small roles for television, she was cast as Laverne DeFazio in the sitcom Laverne and Shirley...
's The Preacher's Wife
The Preacher's Wife
The Preacher's Wife is a 1996 romantic-family-dramedy-christmas film directed by Penny Marshall, and starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, and Loretta Devine. It is a remake of the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife....
, and in Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
's Space Cowboys
Space Cowboys
Space Cowboys is a 2000 science fiction film directed by Clint Eastwood. Eastwood also stars in the film alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as four older "ex-test pilots" who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite...
. Vance also starred in the independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
Love and Action in Chicago
Love and Action in Chicago (film)
Love And Action In Chicago is a 1999 American action romantic comedy starring Courtney B. Vance, Regina King and Kathleen Turner. The film, written and directed by Dwayne Johnson-Cochran, in his directorial debut, focuses on a celibate hired assassin finding love with a quirky accountant in the...
, a romantic comedy which he also co-produced. Vance played Black Panther Bobby Seale
Bobby Seale
Robert George "Bobby" Seale , is an activist. He is known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton.-Early life:...
in the Melvin
Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
and Mario Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles
Mario "Chip" Cain Van Peebles is an American director and actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films. He is son of filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.-Life and career:...
docudrama Panther
Panther (film)
Panther is a 1995 film directed by Mario Van Peebles, from a screenplay adapted by his father, Melvin Van Peebles, based on his book. The film dramatizes the story of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense...
. In 2008 and 2009 he guest starred in the final season of ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
alongside his wife, Angela Bassett
Angela Bassett
Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
.
Vance's television credits include such cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
movies as:
- Blind FaithBlind Faith (1998 film)Blind Faith is a 1998 film starring Charles S. Dutton, Courtney B. Vance, and Lonette McKee.-Plot:Black lawyer John Williams defends his nephew, who is charged with murdering a white youth in 1957.-Cast:*Charles S. Dutton as Charles Williams...
(opposite Charles S. DuttonCharles S. DuttonCharles Stanley Dutton is an American stage, film, and television actor and director. He is perhaps best known for his roles as "Fortune" in the film Rudy and "Dillon" in Alien 3...
), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor in 1999) - the 1997 William FriedkinWilliam FriedkinWilliam Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
-directed 12 Angry Men12 Angry Men (1997 film)12 Angry Men is a 1997 television film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the Reginald Rose teleplay of the same title.-Plot:After the final closing arguments have been presented to the judge, she gives her instructions to the jury. In the United States , the verdict in criminal cases must...
(with Jack LemmonJack LemmonJohn Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
, George C. ScottGeorge C. ScottGeorge Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
and Ossie DavisOssie DavisOssie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
) - the Hallmark presentation The Boys Next Door (alongside Nathan LaneNathan LaneNathan Lane is an American actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his roles as Mendy in The Lisbon Traviata, Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in MouseHunt, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...
, Tony GoldwynTony GoldwynAnthony Howard "Tony" Goldwyn is an American actor and director. He portrayed the villain Carl Bruner in Ghost, Colonel Bagley in The Last Samurai, and the voice of the title character of the Disney animated Tarzan.-Early life:...
, and Michael JeterMichael JeterMichael Jeter was an American actor.- Early life :Michael Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. His mother, Virginia , was a housewife...
) - The Tuskegee AirmenThe Tuskegee AirmenThe Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995 HBO television movie based on the exploits of an actual groundbreaking unit, the first African American combat pilots in the United States Army Air Force, that fought in World War II.-Plot:...
(with Laurence FishburneLaurence FishburneLaurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...
and Andre BraugherAndre BraugherAndre Braugher is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Thomas Searles in the film Glory, as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film Homicide: Life on the Street, and as Owen Thoreau Jr...
) - the television production of August Wilson's play The Piano LessonThe Piano LessonThe Piano Lesson is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson. The Piano Lesson is the fifth play in Wilson's The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson began writing this play by playing with the various answers regarding the possibility of "acquir[ing] a sense of self-worth by denying ones past"...
- The Affair, for which he received a 1996 CableACE AwardCableACE AwardThe CableACE Award was an award that was given from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in American cable television programming...
nomination as Best Actor - the Showtime presentation Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story
- guest starred in ERER (TV series)ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
as Russell Banfield, Dr. Catherine BanfieldCatherine BanfieldCatherine "Cate" Banfield is a fictional character in the American medical drama ER, portrayed by Angela Bassett. She is an attending physician with a mysterious past with County General...
's husband. - Voiced several ex-slave narratives in Unchained MemoriesUnchained MemoriesUnchained Memories is a 2003 documentary films about the stories of former slaves interviewed during the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project. This HBO film interpretation directed by Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon is a compilation of slave narratives, narrated by actors, emulating the...
, aired on HBO in February 2003.
On December 2, 2008, TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
reported that Vance has been cast as the Los Angeles bureau chief of the FBI in the new ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
pilot FlashForward, which is based on a Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 20 novels published, and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and many anthologies. Sawyer has won over forty awards for his fiction, including the Nebula Award ,...
novel and is said to be a possible “companion show” to Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
. Vance is set for the lead in the German-American apocalypse thriller The Divide
The Divide (film)
The Divide is a post-apocalyptic science-fiction thriller film directed by Xavier Gens and written by Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean. It stars Michael Biehn, Lauren German, Milo Ventimiglia.-Plot:...
.
Vance has also provided the voiceover for the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
's "You Want the NFL, Go to the NFL" television spots.
Personal life
Vance is married to actress Angela BassettAngela Bassett
Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
. The couple's first children are twins
TWINS
Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers are a pair of NASA instruments aboard two United States National Reconnaissance Office satellites in Molniya orbits. TWINS was designed to provide stereo images of the Earth's ring current. The first instrument, TWINS-1, was launched aboard USA-184...
, son Slater Josiah and daughter Bronwyn Golden, born on January 27, 2006. He and Bassett have authored a book, Friends: A Love Story. The two also participate in the annual Christmas celebration, Candlelight Processional
The American Adventure
The American Adventure is the host pavilion of the World Showcase within Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort. It is also the name of the pavilion's main attraction, an Audio-Animatronics stage show of American history.-Layout:...
, at Epcot.
Vance is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center
The Actors Center
The Actors Center, New York City, was founded in 1996 by J. Michael Miller. It was established on the concept that established actors need to continue to develop their craft in relation to their growth as human beings...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Vance is an active supporter of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He is an alumnus of the Detroit Boys & Girls Club, and was recently inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame for all of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
External links
- Courtney B. Vance Interview with wife Angela Bassett on Sidewalks EntertainmentSidewalks EntertainmentSidewalks Entertainment is a long-running, weekly American television series that is a combination of a talk show, magazine show and variety show featuring celebrity interviews, music, artistic and novelty acts, and rising performers...