Laurence Fishburne

Actor

• Born: July 30, 1961
• Birthplace: Augusta, Georgia

Actor

Best known for his film acting, Fishburne also is a noted stage and television performer and philanthropist. He received an Oscar nomination for his role as Ike Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It(1993). In addition to playing Shakespeare’s Othello to great acclaim in a 1995 film and becoming a science-fiction icon with his role as Morpheus in The Matrix(1999) and its two sequels, he established a presence in popular franchises such as superhero films and John Wick in the 2010s.

Areas of achievement: Film: acting; Philanthropy

Early Life

Laurence John Fishburne III was born July 30, 1961, in Augusta, Georgia, to middle-class, professional parents. His mother was a science teacher, his father a juvenile corrections officer. Although both parents participated in his upbringing, they divorced when he was four years old. After relocating with his mother to Brooklyn, New York, Fishburne grew up in an ethnically mixed neighborhood. Through southern relatives and his mother’s admiration for Martin Luther King Jr., he developed an appreciation of the accomplishments of African Americans that would be crucial to his later career.

By the age of twelve, Fishburne had become an actor, appearing on ABC’s soap opera One Life to Live. After high school, he avoided college or acting classes, believing he could learn more by actually working with strong actors and directors. He landed a small role in Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando. Although Fishburne was only fourteen, he appeared in the slight but significant role of a sailor.

Life’s Work

During the 1980s, Fishburne had a number of small roles in major Black American films such as Steven Spielberg’sThe Color Purple (1985) and Spike Lee’s take on historically Black universities, School Daze (1988). He also was active on stage and television. In 1985, he married the actor Hajna O. Moss in Ethiopia. They had two children: Langston, born in 1987, and Montana, born in 1991.

During the next decade, Fishburne attracted popular and critical attention as an actor of uncommon range. His strong stage and screen presence was augmented by a resonant voice. He was successful in a variety of challenging roles, as college professor, royal personage, hoodlum, policeman, and street chess hustler. His role as Jimmy Jump in the controversial film King of New York (1990) was widely discussed. Two years later, he won a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway play Two Trains Running and an Emmy Award for his role in the television series Tribeca. However, it was his performance as the talented but brutish Ike Turner in the biographical film What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993) that made him a star and earned Fishburne his first Academy Award nomination. With Angela Bassett as Ike’s wife Tina, Fishburne inaugurated a major creative partnership. The two actors soon would be working together on four stage and screen projects.

Fishburne was frequently compared to actors Paul Robeson and James Earl Jones. Any doubts that he belonged in such esteemed company were dispelled when, in 1995, he was cast in the title role of a major film production of Othello. Critics would compare his Othello to performances of Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier in film and to Robeson on stage. As a Shakespearean actor, Fishburne was successfully measured against the production’s Iago, the more classically trained Kenneth Branagh. Othello was praised for its visual beauty, with Fishburne striking in the exotic robes and jewelry of the Venetian moor. Earlier film Othellos, White actors in blackface, had stressed the play’s race issues. Fishburne, a Black man, highlighted the themes of deception and matrimonial struggle.

The Matrix(1999) and its 2003 sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were science-fiction blockbusters, becoming cult favorites. As Morpheus, Fishburne assumed one of the mentor roles for which he would gain special distinction. In 2006, he rejoined Bassett in Akeelah and the Bee, playing a college professor whose tutoring enables a shy child from the inner city to become a national spelling champion. As the first decade of the twenty-first century neared its end, Fishburne returned to television as another professor, the criminologist Dr. Raymond Langston in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

With stardom came the attention of the Black American press. Ebony called Fishburne a stylish pacesetter, with his motorcycle and mod clothing. He also promoted numerous charities and became a UNICEF ambassador, working chiefly for HIV/AIDS awareness and educational programs for youths. He was named Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year in 2007, chiefly for his humanitarian pursuits, and the mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, declared February 24, 2007, “Laurence Fishburne Day.” That same year, his second wife, Gina Torres, gave birth to daughter Delilah.

The 2010s found Fishburne playing in several action films, including Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016); two installations of the John Wick series released in 2017 and 2019, respectively; and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) . He also starred in both the NBC television thriller Hannibal (2013–15) and the ABC primetime sitcom Black-ish (2014–). He was also cast in a 2016 remake of the iconic 1970s miniseries Roots, following a Black family from the transatlantic slave trade through emancipation. The later part of the decade additionally saw him have roles in the crime dramas The Mule (2018) and Running with the Devil (2019).

Continuing to maintain a presence on television, Fishburne costarred in the limited Quibi series #FreeRayshawn (2020) before appearing alongside Liam Neeson in The Ice Road in 2021.

Fishburne has also directed, written, and produced works for television and film. He founded and helms Cinema Gypsy Productions, which has produced the war drama The Tuskegee Airmen (1996), the heist film Once in the Life (2000; written by Fishburne), and the television series Black-ish as well as Grown-ish (2018– ) and Mixed-ish (2019–21), among other projects.

Significance

By 2010, Fishburne was one of the most recognizable American actors of any ethnicity. He was known to forgo high fees in order to appear in films of special importance to the Black community. His one-man stage show celebrating the life of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American Supreme Court justice (Thurgood, 2008), further celebrated his heritage.

As of 2021, Fishburne had received many awards for his acting, among them a Tony Award, two Drama Desk Awards, and three Emmy Awards. In 2015, his work on Black-ish was recognized with an NAACP Image Award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series.

Bibliography

Bent, Geoffrey. “Three Green-Eyed Monsters: Acting as Applied Criticism in Shakespeare’s Othello.” Antioch Review 56 (1998): 358–74. Print.

Fishburne, Laurence. “Great Conversations: Laurence Fishburne.” Interview by Alex Simon. HuffPost Entertainment. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 July 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.

Fishburne, Laurence. "In Conversation: Laurence Fishburne." Vulture, Vox Media, 19 Aug. 2020, www.vulture.com/article/laurence-fishburne-in-conversation.html. Accessed 20 July 2021.

Fishburne, Laurence. “Q&A: Laurence Fishburne on ‘Black-Ish’ Comedic Turn, ‘Hannibal’ Return & ‘CSI.’” Interview by Nellie Andreeva. Deadline. Penske Business Media, 12 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.

Mapp, Edward. “1993: Laurence Fishburne.” African Americans and the Oscar: Decades of Struggle and Achievement. 2nd ed. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2008. Print.

Smith, Chris. “Home Again.” New York 28 (1995): 48–49. Print.