With time, blacks gained equality in society. Over time, whites no longer dominated American culture. Whites advanced when given white-collar jobs. This made it easier for black actors to enter a white-dominated Hollywood. We’ll now discuss the top 10 famous black actors who have had successful careers in Hollywood and won popular acclaim.
The Top 10 Most Famous Black Actors
These 10 famous black actors have made significant contributions to the film, television, and theatre industries owing to their outstanding acting abilities.
1. Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington is well-known for his cinema and stage appearances. Since the 1980s, he has adorned the silver screen.
He has been dubbed “an actor who reinvented the concept of classic cinema stardom” by reviewers. Grace, dignity, humanism, and inner power characterize his on-screen roles. Denzel has collaborated with notable filmmakers and producers such as Spike Lee, Antoine Fuqua, and Tony Scott.
Denzel Washington has earned several honours for his work as an outstanding actor. Two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Tony Award have all been bestowed to him.
He was named the finest actor of the twenty-first century by The New York Times in 2020.
2. Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is well-known in Hollywood for his outstanding performance. The actor, who is 78 years old, was born in Memphis, Tennessee in June 1937. Morgan was born with a natural gift for acting.
He made his debut as a lead in a school play when he was nine years old. He pursued his goal after coming to California by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Finally, in 1968, he made his Broadway debut in the drama Hello, Dolly! With his eponymous part in Coriolanus and other similar roles, he rose to prominence in the theatre, earning him an Obie Award.
Despite his tireless efforts in theatre and television, Morgan’s acting career truly begins on the big screen. Furthermore, in his films, he generally played a nice, knowledgeable father figure.
One such film in which he played a reformed criminal was The Shawshank Redemption. His outstanding performances in this film and Driving Miss Daisy earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
He ultimately won an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby. His deep resonating unique voice has helped him secure numerous notable jobs, including the narrator of the Oscar-winning documentary March of the Penguins.
3. Samuel L Jackson
Samuel Jackson is another name at the top of the list of black performers in American film. Due to his fame, the sixty-six-year-old actor was reared in Tennessee and did not require any introduction. Samuel Jackson is well-known for his numerous roles and tremendous contributions.
He wanted to follow a marine biology course, but he changed his mind after developing a strong interest in marine biology. He began his acting career on the stage, then moved on to television films, and ultimately to the big screen in 1972, with his debut in Together for Days.
Die Hard with a Vengeance, Pulp Fiction, Jurassic Park, and Star Wars are just a few of the films that have propelled him to the top of the list of performers. He also appeared as Nick Fury in the film Marvel Cinematic Universe.
4. Will Smith
Will Smith, an African-American actor who is well-known in Hollywood, was born in the year 1968 in the state of Pennsylvania, located in the United States of America.
One of the most well-known and handsome African-American male performers of all time. He has been nominated for and won a number of prizes, including four Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, and five Golden Globe Awards. In addition, he has won four Grammy Awards.
5. Laurence Fishburne
The Georgia-born actor possesses a wide range of talents, and in addition to acting, he has made significant contributions to a number of other sectors related to the entertainment industry.
He wowed audiences with his prowess in high-calibre films such as “The Matrix” and “Mission: Impossible 3,” among others. In addition to directing, producing, and writing screenplays, he is an expert in these areas as well.
6. Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker III is a well-known actor, producer, and director from the United States. He was born in the United States on July 15, 1961.
Whitaker has a great reputation in the film business because of his considerable work on character development for films such as Bird, The Crying Game, Platoon, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Great Debaters, The Butler, and Arrival. You may also remember him from his performances as Saw Gerrera and Zuri in the film office smashes Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Black Panther.
For his depiction of Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland, Whitaker received the Academy Award, the BAFTA Award, the Golden Globe Award, the National Board of Review Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award, and other honours for a main acting performance. Various critiquing groups presented these honours.
7. Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Phifer is a well-known American actor who came to prominence for his role as Dr Greg Patt on the television series “ER,” which is a medical drama. He appeared in more than 40 films during the course of his career, which spanned more than two decades.
In the fourth season of the Celebrity Poker Showdown Championship, he took first place and won the title in 2004.
8. Chadwick Boseman
Boseman, who acted in films such as Black Panther, 21 Bridges, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, died on August 28, 2020, at the age of 43, following a four-year struggle with colon cancer.
In an Instagram post at the time, his family acknowledged his passing. “It is with great sadness that we announce Chadwick Boseman’s passing,” his family said in a statement.
“In 2016, Chadwick was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer, which he battled over the next four years as it advanced to stage IV. A real warrior, Chadwick persisted and delivered you many of the films you have grown to love. August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black, from Marshall to Da 5 Bloods
9. Eddy Murphy
Eddie Murphy is one of Hollywood’s highest-paid performers, as well as one of the wealthiest. Eddie Murphy is an actor, comedian, writer, producer, and singer from the United States. From 1980 until 1984, he was a regular cast member of the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, where he came to popularity.
Eddie Murphy has performed as a voice actor, most notably in Disney’s Mulan, when he played the Chinese dragon Mushu (1998). The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presented Eddie Murphy with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015.
10. Danny Glover
Danny Glover (born July 22, 1947, in San Francisco, California, U.S.), is an American actor, producer, and social activist noted for playing a cautious veteran detective in Lethal Weapon (1987) and its three sequels (1989, 1992, and 1998).
Glover studied acting at San Francisco State College and the Black Actors Workshop. Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and Master Harold…and the Boys were among his theatre works. Escape from Alcatraz was Glover’s cinematic début in 1979. In 1981, he had a recurring part on Hill Street Blues. He played heroes in Places in the Heart (1984) and Silverado (1985).
In Witness (1985), a Harrison Ford crime drama, and The Color Purple, he played villains (1985). In the latter picture, he played the violent husband of Whoopi Goldberg’s character.
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