|
|
|
|
Danny Glover
|
| |
|
| |
Danny Lebern Glover (born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. Glover is possibly best known for his role as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise.
er was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Carrie (née Hunley) and James Glover, both of whom were postal workers and were active in the NAACP. Glover grew up with a love for sports just like his father. Glover's mother, daughter of a midwife, was born in Louisville, Georgia and graduated from Paine College.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Danny Glover' Start a new discussion about 'Danny Glover' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
Danny Lebern Glover (born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. Glover is possibly best known for his role as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise.
Biography
Early life
Glover was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Carrie (née Hunley) and James Glover, both of whom were postal workers and were active in the NAACP. Glover grew up with a love for sports just like his father. Glover's mother, daughter of a midwife, was born in Louisville, Georgia and graduated from Paine College. Glover graduated from George Washington High School (San Francisco) before attending American University and matriculating at San Francisco State University. At university, he also met his future wife Asake Bomani, whom he married in 1975. Their only child and daughter, Mandisa, was born on January 5, 1976. They have been divorced for some time now.
In his late thirties, Glover enrolled in the Black Actors Workshop at the American Conservatory Theater, a regional training program in San Francisco. Glover also trained with Jean Shelton at the Shelton Actors Lab in San Francisco. In an interview on Inside the Actor's Studio, Glover credited Shelton for much of his development as an actor. Deciding that he wanted to be an actor, Glover resigned from his city administration job and soon began his career as a stage actor. He moved to Los Angeles for more opportunities in acting.
Glover suffered from epilepsy as a teenager and young adult; according to his own account, he "developed a way of concentrating so that seizures wouldn't happen." Using this technique, which he describes as a type of self-hypnosis, Glover says he hasn't suffered a seizure since the age of 35.
Career
He has had a variety of film, stage, and television roles, and is best known for playing Los Angeles police Sgt. Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon series of action films. He is also known as the abusive husband to Whoopi Goldberg's character celie in The Color Purple.
In Predator 2, the sequel to the sci-fi actioner Predator, Glover earned top billing for the first time. In addition, Glover has been a voice actor in many children's movies. Glover was featured in the popular 2001 film Royal Tenenbaums, also starring Gywneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.
Among many awards, he has won five NAACP Image Awards for his achievements as an actor of color.
Glover joined the ranks of actors, such as Humphrey Bogart, Elliott Gould, and Robert Mitchum, who have portrayed Raymond Chandler's private eye detective Philip Marlowe in the episode 'Red Wind' of the Showtime network's 1995 series Fallen Angels. Glover made his directorial debut with the Showtime channel short film Override in 1994. Also in 1994, Glover and actor Ben Guillory formed the Robey Theatre Company in Los Angeles, focusing on theatre by and about the Black experience.
In 2005, Glover and Joslyn Barnes announced plans to make No FEAR, a movie about Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's experience. Coleman-Adebayo won a 2000 jury trial against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The jury found the EPA guilty of violating the civil rights of Coleman-Adebayo on the basis of race, sex, color and a hostile work environment, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Coleman-Adebayo was terminated shortly after she revealed the environmental and human disaster taking place in the Brits, South Africa, vanadium mines. Her experience inspired passage of the No FEAR Act.
Glover is set to play the President of the United States, President Wilson in 2012, a disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich, which is scheduled to be released in theaters November 13, 2009.
Activism
While attending San Francisco State University, Glover was a member of the Black Students Union which, along with the Third World Liberation Front, led a five-month student strike to establish a department of Ethnic Studies. The strike was the longest student walkout in U.S. history and helped create the first school of Ethnic Studies in the U.S. Hari Dillon, current president of the Vanguard Public Foundation was a fellow striker at SFSU. Glover now sits on Vanguard's advisory board. Glover is also a board member of The Algebra Project, The Black AIDS Institute, Walden House, Cheryl Byron's Something Positive Dance Group, among others.
Glover's long history of union activism includes support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE!, numerous service unions and an incidental arrest-conviction for trespassing during a union rally at a Sheraton Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 2006. Although Canadian Niagara Hotels sought $22,000 to cover the costs of private prosecution, Glover -- along with union representative Alex Dagg and Ontario Federation of Labour president Wayne Samuelson -- were only fined $100 each. The justice of the peace ruled "the prosecution was unnecessary to protect the interests of the hotel's owner, and that the company should have put more effort toward good faith negotiations with the union".
In January 2006, Harry Belafonte led a delegation of activists including Glover and activist/professor Cornel West meeting with President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez to support him.
Glover was a supporter of John Edwards in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary until Edwards' withdrawal. Glover has sinced endorsed Barack Obama. Glover has been an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, calling him a known racist. "Yes, he's racist. We all knew that. As Texas's governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died were Afro-Americans or Hispanics."
Glover's support of California Proposition 7 (2008) was made evident on November 2, 2008 when he was featured in an automated phone call to an indeterminate number of California voters.
Filmography
Planned directorial debut
Glover sought to make a film biography of Toussaint Louverture for his directorial debut. In May 2006, the film had included cast members Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Roger Guenveur Smith, Mos Def, Isaach De Bankolé, and Richard Bohringer. Production, estimated to cost $30 million, was planned to begin in South Africa, filming from late 2006 into early 2007. In May 2007, President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez contributed $18 million to fund the production of Toussaint for Glover, who is a prominent U.S. supporter of Chávez. The contribution infuriated Venezuelan filmmakers, who said the money could have funded local cinema and that Glover's film was not even about Venezuela. The following June, Venezuelan filmmakers petitioned for Glover to reconsider using the funds provided by their president while the actor was scouting locations outside the Venezuelan capital Caracas. The petition resulted in the local film guilds Anac and Caveprol being outlawed by Venezuela; the country's state-backed film institute Cnac was also instructed to sever ties with the guild. In April of 2008, the Venezuelan National Assembly authorized an additional $9,840,505 for Glover's film, which is still in planning.
External links
- (TV Interview)
- on KBOO
- discussing the Oscars and the Panafrican Film and Television Festival in Burkina Faso
- on
The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
|
| |
|
|
