In movies including “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Glory,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” and “The Dark Knight Trilogy,” actor Morgan Freeman has starred.
Morgan Freeman: Who Is He?
After finishing high school, Morgan Freeman enlisted in the Air Force to train as a fighter pilot. His acting career started after he subsequently learned it wasn’t what he’d desired. He began to obtain significant roles and receive both critical and popular recognition after years of tiny roles and modest success. He is now regarded as one of Hollywood’s top actors.
Early Life and Background
Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on June 1, 1937. Freeman, the youngest of five children born to barber Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Sr. and teacher Mayme Edna, was raised in a low-income home in Chicago and Mississippi. Soon after Morgan was born, his parents, like so many other African Americans enduring the hardships of the Jim Crow South, moved to Chicago in search of employment. Freeman stayed with his maternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi, while his parents hunted for work.
When Freeman was 6 years old, his grandmother passed away, and he moved north to be with his mother, who had already divorced his alcoholic father. Later, they relocated to Tennessee before returning to Mississippi, where Mayme Edna established her family’s home in Greenwood.
When he was younger, Freeman spent a significant deal of his time saving money to attend the movies, where he developed an early affinity for performers like Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, and Gary Cooper. Freeman himself fell into acting by accident. Freeman was required to take part in the school’s theatre competition as payback for removing a chair from under a girl he had a crush on while he was in junior high. To his astonishment—and likely the surprise of the school administration—the 12-year-old showed that he was an instant stage natural, winning the competition.
His Military Service
Even though Freeman liked acting, he had a deep-seated passion for flying, particularly the prospect of becoming a fighter pilot. To join the U.S. Air Force, Morgan declined a partial theatre scholarship after graduating from high school in 1955. But the military turned out to be very different from what he had anticipated. Freeman was forced to work as a mechanic and a radar technician on the ground rather than flying about in the air. He also realised that he did not want to be killing other people.
He admitted to AARP Magazine, “I had this really distinct insight.” You’re in love with the concept of this, not with the actual thing. Freeman left the Air Force in 1959 and moved to Hollywood to try his luck in the entertainment industry. Life wasn’t simple. He studied acting while having trouble landing a job. He relocated once more in the early 1960s, this time to New York City, where he worked menial day jobs and attended auditions at night.
Big Break
Freeman’s major break in his career occurred in 1967, the same year he married Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, when he was cast in an all-African American Broadway production of Pearl Bailey’s Hello, Dolly! Freeman also appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Nigger Lovers at that time.
In 1971, he began appearing often on The Electric Company, a children’s TV programme created by public television with a reading-focused theme. This led to some national notoriety. Freeman played some of the more enduring characters on a show that featured future and present stars like Rita Moreno, Joan Rivers, and Gene Wilder. These characters included “Easy Reader,” “Mel Mounds,” and “Count Dracula.”
However, Freeman found that his life as a television actor was difficult and demanding. Freeman struggled to find success in movies despite some stage work, notably a Tony-nominated performance in The Mighty Gents in the late 1970s. When The Electric Company was cancelled in 1976, Freeman realised he was looking at an unsteady future for his career. His private life was also suffering. Long before the show finished, Freeman discovered that his marriage was in trouble and started binge drinking. In 1979, Freeman and Jeanette got divorced.
Freeman’s career took off a year after his divorce when he was cast as a deranged prisoner in the Robert Redford movie Brubaker (1980). Freeman was obliged to return to television for two trying years on the cast of the soap opera Another World when he had thought that a consistent stream of film employment would come along.
For the majority of the following decade, Freeman took on supporting roles that brought him some critical accolades, but not the significant, impactful ones that would attract A-list recognition. Along with other jobs, he had a part in the 1984 Paul Newman movie Harry and Son and provided the narration for the TV miniseries The Atlanta Child Murders.
Hollywood Star
Freeman’s circumstances altered in 1987 when he was chosen to play the dangerous pimp Fast Black in the movie Street Smart. Freeman had great success in the part, which led to his Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Even going so far as to wonder aloud, “Is Morgan Freeman the greatest American actor?” is film critic Pauline Kael. Two years later, Freeman received additional praise for his performance as the kind but obstinate driver in 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy, earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a second Oscar nomination.
He also starred in the critically acclaimed play Glory, directed by Edward Zwick, about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first acknowledged African American forces in the Civil War. Freeman was enjoying a successful career by the 1990s, appearing in high-profile movies like The Shawshank Redemption from 1994, Seven from 1995, and Deep Impact from 1996. (1998).
In the 2003 comedy Bruce Almighty and its 2007 sequel Evan Almighty, Freeman was a logical choice to play God due to his dominating presence and powerful voice.
Freeman earned an Oscar in 2005 for his work in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby as Best Supporting Actor. In the popular sequels The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises, he later played Lucius Fox from Batman Begins (2005) again (2012). Additionally, he made appearances in the action film Red (2010) with Bruce Willis and Rob Reiner’s The Bucket List (2007).
Freeman was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2012 Golden Globes for his “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”
Regarding his cinema preferences, he has remarked, “I like being eclectic.” “The better the variety, the greater the range. I’ve been drawn into a stereotype of a good guy, and I practically have no control over that. But other from that, all I’m looking for is a compelling narrative with a compelling lead character.”
Freeman is natural for narration due to his expressive, distinctive voice. He provided the voiceover for iconic movies like War of the Worlds and the Oscar-winning March of the Penguins. He also took over Walter Cronkite’s role as Katie Couric’s introduction on the CBS Evening News in 2010.
With Eastwood once more, Freeman collaborated on the 2009 film Invictus, in which he portrayed South African President Nelson Mandela and received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. A few years later, he had appearances in the action-thriller Olympus Has Fallen (2013), the sci-fi movie Oblivion (2013), the comedy Last Vegas (2013), the sci-fi blockbuster Lucy (2014), and provided voiceovers for The Lego Movie (2014). He portrayed the Chief Justice of the United States in 2015 on the TV programme Madam Secretary, for which he also serves as executive producer.
President Barack Obama awarded Freeman with the National Medal of Arts in September of the following year, 2016. President Obama stated that Freeman was being honoured at the ceremony “for his excellent performance in the roles of actor, director, and narrator. His legendary stage and screen performances have moved audiences across the world and influenced countless new artists by bringing to life characters from the whole range of the human experience.”
In the 2016 film, London Has Fallen and the 2019 film Angel Has Fallen, Freeman played Allan Trumbull once more.
Off Camera
Although it may have only recently been successful, he is not at all displeased with it. He has observed, “Success comes when it comes.” “I worked for 30 years; that’s not bad for a profession. I often consider how fortunate I was not to become wildly successful in my early years while rising through the 1970s. I could have easily become exhausted.”
Freeman was a founding partner of Revelations Entertainment, which produced movies and operated ClickStar, an internet movie distributor, in 1997. He has also started several charitable projects. The Mississippi Delta-based actor started raising money for Katrina victims not long after the catastrophic hurricane tore through the region. Freeman’s group has contributed millions of dollars to educational initiatives through the Rock River Foundation, an organisation he founded. Additionally, he participated in the 2004 relief effort for Grenada’s storm victims. In July 2014, Freeman converted his 124-acre ranch into a beekeeping sanctuary after learning about the decrease in honeybees and its catastrophic effects on the environment.
The influence of Freeman also penetrates other spheres. The actor co-founded a blues club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, his home state. Freeman recently obtained his pilot’s licence.
In recent years, there has been some turmoil in Freeman’s personal life. He divorced Myrna, his second wife, in 2007, and the following year, he almost died in a car accident in Charleston, Mississippi. None of his disappointments, however, was as terrible as the August 2015 revelation that E’Dena Hines, the step granddaughter he and Myrna had adopted, had been murdered in New York City by her boyfriend.
In a statement to People, Freeman added, “The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer.” She was lucky that her friends and family understood who she was as a person.
However, despite these challenging times, the actor has been working and doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Even those who aren’t accustomed to praising their interview subjects have respect for him because of his role selection and temperament away from the camera.
He is a wonderful man, according to Mike Wallace, who spoke with the actor for a 60 Minutes segment in 2006. “He is a considerate man. He is not, in any way, a bitter man. He is still learning about his past and present. I have a lot of admiration for Morgan Freeman.”
Allegations of Sexual Harassment
Eight women have accused Freeman of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour, according to a May 24, 2018, CNN story. He allegedly “continued trying to raise my skirt and asked if I was wearing underwear,” according to one of those women, a production assistant on his 2015 film Going In Style. A senior member of the production team for the 2013 film Now You See Me, who is also one of the alleged victims, said to CNN: “He did make remarks about our bodies. We were aware that avoiding wearing fitting clothing and refraining from wearing any tops that would reveal our bottoms if he were to drop by was the best course of action.”
Later, Freeman released the following statement: “Anyone who knows me or has worked with me understands that I would never purposefully offend or uncomfortably make someone else feel. It was never my intention to make anyone feel uneasy or insulted, therefore I sincerely apologise.”
A few days later, Freeman’s attorney sent CNN CEO Jeff Zucker a letter asking for an apology and retraction for the “malicious purpose, falsehoods, sleight-of-hand, an absence of editorial control, and journalistic malpractice” that were “used to unjustly malign” his client. Quickly after, CNN responded with a statement defending its story.
Awards And Achievements
For his performance in the motion picture “Driving Miss Daisy,” he was given the “Golden Globe Award” for “Best Performance by an Actor” in 1990. He was honoured with the “Academy Award” for “Best Supporting Actor” for the 2004 film “Million Dollar Baby.”
He received “The Cecil B. DeMille Award,” an honorary “Golden Globe Award,” from the Hollywood Foreign Press Organization for “outstanding accomplishments to the entertainment world in 2012.” He received honorary degrees from Delta State University and Boston University. Additionally, he was presented with “The lifetime Achievement Award” by the Screen Actors Guild Academy.
Wrap-Up
Without a doubt, Morgan Freeman’s life serves as an incredibly motivating example for us. His success story is just as compelling as his charisma. Morgan has gained a lot of fame throughout his career. He continues to make appearances at this time and is a well-known personality. Thanks to his naturally golden voice and extraordinary acting skills.
