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Morgan Freeman, (born June 1, 1937, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.), 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.

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 aging 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) before appearing as Lucius Fox, a research and development guru, in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005). Freeman reprised the latter role in the sequels The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (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 pursued less-suspenseful fare as well with roles in the sentimental dramas Dolphin Tale (2011) and its sequel, Dolphin Tale 2 (2014), and in The Magic of Belle Isle (2012).

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 Ted 2 (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.

Freeman later portrayed the toy maker Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018), an adaptation of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 19th-century ballet. In The Comeback Trail (2020), Freeman starred with De Niro and Tommy Lee Jones and was cast as a mob boss. His credits from 2021 included the crime thriller Vanquish, the action comedy The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, and the sci-fi anthology TV series Solos.

Freeman was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Kennedy Center Honor in 2008 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement) in 2012.

Courtesy - The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
- Morgan Freeman

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