'''Denzel Jermaine Washington, Jr.''' (born December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York) is a two-time Academy Award-winning American film actor and occasional director and stage actor.
Biography
Early life
Washington was born in Mount Vernon, New York to African-American parents; he has an older sister, Lorice, and a younger brother. Although his father, Dillwyn, Virginia-born Reverend Denzel Washington, was an ordained Pentecostal minister, he worked for the Water Department and at a local department store, "S. Klein". His mother, Lennis, a beauty parlor owner, was born in Georgia and raised in Harlem. Washington was banned from watching movies by his parents, who divorced when he was fourteen. He subsequently went through a rebellious stage, at the end of which several of his friends were sentenced to prison. His mother's reaction to his behavioral problems was to send him to preparatory school, and later on he was sent to Fordham University, where he discovered acting and earned a degree in journalism.
Early career
Washington's first film role was in the 1975 made-for-television movie, ''Wilma''. His big break came when he starred in the popular television hospital drama, ''St. Elsewhere''. He was one of a few actors to appear on the series for its entire six-year run. In 1987, after appearing in several minor theatrical films and stage roles, Washington starred as South African anti-apartheid campaigner Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's ''
Cry Freedom'', a role for which he received an Oscar nomination for ''Best Supporting Actor''. In 1989, Washington won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for playing a defiant, self-possessed ex-slave in the film ''
Glory''. Also that same year, he gave a powerful performance as Reuben James, a Caribbean-born black man who turned from British Army paratrooper to vigilante to situate the neighborhoods in England in ''
For Queen and Country''.
Career: 1990s
Washington played one of his most critically acclaimed roles in 1992's ''
Malcolm X'', directed by Spike Lee. His performance as the Black Nationalist leader earned him an Oscar nomination. Both the influential film critic Roger Ebert and the highly-acclaimed film director Martin Scorsese called the movie one of the ten best films made during the 1990s.
''
Malcolm X'' transformed Washington's career, turning him, practically overnight, into one of Hollywood's most respected actors. He turned down several similar roles, such as an offer to play Martin Luther King, Jr., because he wanted to avoid being typecast. The next year, in 1993, he took another risk in his career by playing Joe Miller, the homophobic lawyer of a man with AIDS in the movie ''
Philadelphia'' starring Tom Hanks,
