Morgan Freeman is a name heard by everyone at some point of time. He is popular for his deep, emotional, and extraordinary voice. Apart from that, he is held in high regard due to his superb acting skills. Know The Fact is here to elaborate on the life of this talented actor.
Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee on June 1, 1937. The youngest of four siblings, Morgan was a man born to be in the spotlight. He played the lead role in his school play at age 9, and when he was 12 years old, he won a statewide drama competition. After graduation from high school, Morgan was offered a partial drama scholarship by Jackson State University and joined the United States Air Force instead. Morgan served in the Air Force from 1955 to 1959 and then actively started pursuing a career in acting. He briefly worked as a dancer.
Breakthrough
Morgan Freeman made his first appearance on Broadway in 1967 with the movie Hello Dolly! In the 1970s he appeared on the children’s Television show Electric Company as Easy Reader. Throughout the 1980s, Freeman engaged in many performances. He received his first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor due to his excellent performance in the 1987 film, Street Smart. In 1989, he was nominated for a best-actor Oscar for his role in the movie Driving Miss Daisy. In 1993, he directed his first movie, Bopha! In 1994, Morgan received an Oscar nomination for his role in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. The movie remains popular to this day. He also acted in other movies in the 1990s, including Outbreak, Se7en, Moll Flanders, etc.
In the 2000s
In 2001, Morgan Freeman acted in the movie Along Came a Spider, which wasn’t well received. In 2002, he starred in the movies The Sum of All Fears and High Crime. In 2003, he also starred in the comedy movies Bruce Almighty and Dreamcatcher, which was a commercial failure, and two dramas, Levity and Guilty by Association. Morgan starred in the comedy movie The Big Bohence and also in a sports drama, Million Dollar Baby. A Million Dollar Baby was a hit. His role in the movie earned him his first Academy Award along with a Golden Globe nomination. In 2003, Freeman narrated two documentaries, namely War of the Worlds and March of the Penguins. The latter was an award-winning documentary. He starred in the well-known Batman Begins, directed by Christopher Nolan in 2005. He also made an appearance in its sequels, The Dark Knight in 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.
Morgan Freeman acted in several movies throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Some of his most successful movies include The Bucket List (2007) and Invictus (2009), which earned him Best Actor nominations at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes, and also a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Also in the list are Red (2010), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), Last Vegas (2013), London Has Fallen (2016) and Ben-Hur (2016), one of the most commercially successful movies of 2016. Over the years, Freeman has also lent his voice to many documentaries. The list includes the documentaries Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D and Through the Wormhole (2010–17) for the Science Channel, The Story of God with Morgan Freeman for the National Geographic channel (2016), and The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman (2017). Apart from documentaries, Freeman also voiced other projects. In 2011, he narrated Conan the Barbarian and voiced the introduction to the CBS Evening News presented by Katie Couric.
In 2020, Morgan Freeman stars in the crime comedy The Comeback Trail. His most recent film as an actor is 2021 Coming 2 America.
Awards
Morgan Freeman has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor two times. He was also nominated for Best Actor two times. He won the award for Best Supporting Actor once in 2004. Apart from these, he has received one Golden Globe Award and has been nominated for five more, and the list goes on.
