Product Code Database
Danny Glover ( ; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, producer, and political activist. Over his career he has received numerous accolades including the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the NAACP's President's Award, as well as nominations for five Emmy Awards and four Grammy Awards.
Glover made his film acting debut in Escape from Alcatraz in 1979. He rose to fame in the late 1980s for playing Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film series. Glover's other notable films include Places in the Heart (1984), The Color Purple (1985), Witness (1985), To Sleep with Anger (1990), Predator 2 (1990), Grand Canyon (1991), Bopha! (1993), Angels in the Outfield (1994), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Saw (2004), Dreamgirls (2006), Shooter (2007), Be Kind Rewind (2008), 2012 (2009), Death at a Funeral (2010), Beyond the Lights (2014), Sorry to Bother You (2018), and The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019).
He is known for his work in television, receiving four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his roles as Nelson Mandela in the HBO television film Mandela (1987), Joshua Deets in CBS western miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989), Philip Marlowe in the Showtime neo-noir series Fallen Angels (1995), and Will Walker in TNT biographical film Freedom Song (2000). He had recurring roles in Hill Street Blues, ER, and Brothers & Sisters.
Glover is also an active supporter of various political causes. He is a member of the TransAfrica Forum and the Center for Economic and Policy Research. For his political work, he was awarded the Cuban National Medal of Friendship by the Cuban Council of State.
As an adolescent and a young adult, Glover had epilepsy but has not had a seizure since age 35. He attended San Francisco State University (SFSU) in the late 1960s but did not graduate. SFSU later awarded him the Presidential Medal of San Francisco State University for his service to education. Glover trained at the Black Actors' Workshop of the American Conservatory Theater.
His first theater involvement was with the American Conservatory Theater, a regional training program in San Francisco. Glover also trained with Jean Shelton at the Shelton Studios in San Francisco. In an interview on Inside the Actors Studio, Glover credited Jean 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. Glover then moved to Los Angeles for more opportunities in acting.
Glover made his film acting debut in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He has since had a variety of film, stage and television roles. His earlier work included a recurring role on Hill Street Blues, and the role of Moses Hadner in the 1984 drama film Places in the Heart.
Glover is best known for playing Los Angeles police Sergeant Roger Murtaugh in the action film Lethal Weapon (1987), and in the 1989, 1992 and 1998 sequels of the film series, starring alongside Mel Gibson. He received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his roles as Nelson Mandela in the HBO television film Mandela (1987) and Joshua Deets in CBS western miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989). In 1990, he earned top billing for the first time in the blockbuster Predator 2 with Gary Busey, the sequel to the science-fiction action film Predator. That same year, he starred in Charles Burnett's To Sleep with Anger, for which he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. He also appeared in films such as Grand Canyon (1991) and Bopha! (1993).
During his career, Glover has also made several cameos, appearing, for example, in the Michael Jackson video "Liberian Girl" of 1987. In 1994, Glover and actor Ben Guillory founded the Robey Theatre Company in Los Angeles in honor of the actor and concert singer Paul Robeson. Its purpose was to focus on theatre by and about Black people.
Also in 1994, Glover made his directorial debut with the Showtime channel short film Override. That same year, he played the role of baseball manager George Knox in Angels in the Outfield for Walt Disney Pictures. Disney originally wanted Bob Hoskins for the role of George Knox, but he was considered too short for the role and Glover was cast because of his height and is the same size as the actors playing the California Angels.
In common with Humphrey Bogart, Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum, who have played Raymond Chandler's private eye detective Philip Marlowe, Glover played the role in the episode "Red Wind" of the Showtime network's 1995 series Fallen Angels, earning him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Also that year, Glover played Captain Sam Cahill in the war film Operation Dumbo Drop.
In 1997, under his former production company banner Carrie Films, Glover executive produced numerous films of first time directors including Pamm Malveaux's neo-noir short film Final Act starring Joe Morton, which aired on the Independent Film Channel. In 1998, he starred as Paul D. in the drama film Beloved, based on Toni Morrison's novel. In addition, Glover has been a voice actor in many children's movies including The Prince of Egypt (1998), Antz (1998) and Our Friend, Martin (1999). In 2000, he played Will Walker in TNT biographical film Freedom Song, which earned him another Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Glover portrayed David Keaton in the television film The Exonerated (2005)—a real-life story of Keaton's experience of being arrested, jailed, and then freed from death row. In 2006, he voiced Miles, an elderly mule, in the animated film Barnyard, and played Marty Madison in the musical Dreamgirls. In 2007, he played Colonel Isaac Johnson in the action thriller Shooter.
In 2009, Glover performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. He also had recurring roles on the shows ER and Brothers & Sisters.
Glover played President Thomas Wilson, the President of the United States in 2012, a disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich and released in theaters November 13, 2009. In 2010, Glover participated in the black comedy film Death at a Funeral, and a Spanish film called I Want to Be a Soldier. In 2012, he starred in the film Donovan's Echo. Glover co-starred in the science fiction comedy film Sorry to Bother You, which was released in theaters on July 6, 2018. He also appeared in the film The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019). In December 2019, he played Milo Walker in the action comedy film starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan.
Glover played Mark Walker in the indie drama film The Drummer (2020). He appeared in an episode of the ABC sitcom Black-ish (2014–2022) as Uncle Norman in 2020. He played Jerry in the comedy American Dreamer (2022). He played Cooper in the romantic drama Press Play (2022). He played Santa Claus in the Disney+ original movie The Naught Nine (2023). He played Michael Tedeschi in the film Double Soul (2023).
In April 2008, the Venezuelan National Assembly authorized an additional $9,840,505 for Glover's film. In 2015, Glover gave an update on the Toussaint project, stating, "The film that we always missed is a movie on the Haitian revolution and Toussaint Louverture. The company is fortuitously named after him and that was the movie that I wanted to do. We've developed a script. We thought we were going to get it done four years ago. We thought we were going to be making it right now. But also there are other kinds of things that intrigue me."
On January 30, 2015, Glover was the Keynote Speaker and 2015 Honoree for the MLK Celebration Series at the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI). Glover used his career and personal story to speak on the topic "Creativity and Democracy: Social Change through the Arts". At the University of the Virgin Islands, Glover gave a speech that encouraged the graduates in their upcoming journey.
It was announced in July 2018 that Glover will be the featured guest at the Port Townsend Film Festival in Washington State.
Glover purchased a house in Dunthorpe, Oregon, in 1999. As of 2011, he no longer lives in Oregon.
Hari Dillon, current president of the Vanguard Public Foundation, was a fellow striker at SFSU. Glover later co-chaired Vanguard's board. He is also a board member of the Algebra Project, the Black AIDS Institute, Walden House and Cheryl Byron's Something Positive Dance Group. He was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly after being arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington during a protest over Sudan's humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
In 1999, he used his leverage as a former San Francisco cab driver to raise awareness about African Americans being passed over for white passengers. In response, Rudolph Giuliani launched Operation Refusal, which suspended the licenses of cab drivers who favored white passengers over black ones.
Glover's long history of union activism includes support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE, and numerous service unions. In March 2010, Glover supported 375 union workers in Ohio by calling upon all actors at the 2010 Academy Awards to boycott Hugo Boss suits following announcement of Hugo Boss's decision to close a manufacturing plant in Ohio after a proposed pay decrease from $13 to $8.30 an hour was rejected by the Workers United Union.
On November 1, 2011, Glover spoke to the crowd at Occupy Oakland on the day before the Oakland General Strike where thousands of protestors shut down the Port of Oakland.
In 2017, he co-authored a petition along with Noam Chomsky, Mark Ruffalo, Nancy Fraser, Oliver Stone and Eve Ensler, urging French citizens to vote for candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the 2017 presidential election.
Glover was 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 Proposition 7 led him to use his voice in an automated phone call to generate support for the measure before the election.
On April 16, 2010, Glover was arrested in Maryland during a protest by SEIU workers for Sodexo's alleged unfair and illegal treatment of workers. He was given a citation and later released. The Associated Press reports "Glover and others stepped past yellow police tape and were asked to step back three times at Sodexo headquarters. When they refused, officers arrested them."
On the foreign policy of the Obama administration, Glover said: "I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don't see anything different... On the domestic side, look here: What's so clear is that this country from the outset is protecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street? He may be just a different face, and that face may happen to be black, and if it were Hillary Clinton, it would happen to be a woman.... But what choices do they have within the structure?"
Glover wrote the foreword to Phyllis Bennis' book, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power. Glover is also a member of the board of directors of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank led by economist Dean Baker.
During an anti-war demonstration in Downtown Oakland in March 2003, Glover praised the community leaders for their anti-war efforts saying that "They're on the front lines because they are trying to make a better America. ... The world has come together and said 'no' to this war—and we must stand with them."
Glover was also a board member of TeleSUR, a media network primarily funded by the Venezuelan government. During the beginning of the 2014 Venezuelan protests, Glover extended his support to Chávez's successor, President Nicolás Maduro, calling members of his government "the stewards" of Venezuela's democracy. Glover also told Venezuelan government supporters to go fight for the sovereignty of Maduro's government. Through the crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela, Glover continued to show his support for the Bolivarian government and President Maduro's administration.
He was also the recipient of a tribute paid by the Deauville American Film Festival in France on September 7, 2011.
Glover was awarded the Cuban National Medal of Friendship by the Cuban Council of State on December 29, 2016, in a ceremony in Havana for his solidarity with the Cuban 5 during their time of incarceration in the United States.
On March 25, 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) presented Glover with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Governors Awards ceremony. In 2023, he was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame in Atlanta, Georgia. IndieWire named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
|
|
