Quick Facts
Best Known For
Respected actor Morgan Freeman has appeared in such films as Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven and Batman Begins.
Morgan Freeman. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 05:19, May 23, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982
Morgan Freeman [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982, May 23
" Morgan Freeman." 2012. Biography.com 23 May 2012, 05:19 http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982
' Morgan Freeman', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982 [accessed May 23, 2012]
" Morgan Freeman," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982 (accessed May 23, 2012).
Morgan Freeman [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 May 23]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982.
Morgan Freeman, http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982 (last visited May 23, 2012).
Morgan Freeman, http://www.biography.com/people/morgan-freeman-9301982 (last visited May 23, 2012).
Synopsis
Morgan Freeman was born June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee. Although he loved acting, Freeman joined the air force after high school to become a fighter pilot. He later realized it wasn't what he'd wanted, and began his acting career. After years of small parts and limited success, he began to land big roles and win critical and popular acclaim. He's now one of Hollywood's most respected stars.
Early Passion for Acting
Actor, director, narrator. Morgan Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee. The youngest of five children born to barber Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Sr. and schoolteacher Mayme Edna, Freeman was raised in Chicago and Mississippi in a low-income home. Not long after he was born, Morgan's parents, like so many other African-Americans struggling under the pressures of the Jim Crow south, relocated to Chicago to find work. While his parents looked for jobs, Freeman remained with his maternal grandmother in Charlestown, Mississippi.
At the age of six, Freeman's grandmother died and he moved north to be with his mother, who had already separated from her alcoholic husband. More moves followed, to Tennessee and eventually back to Mississippi, where Mayme Edna settled her family in Greenwood.
As a kid, Freeman spent a good portion of his time scraping together enough money to see movies, where he formed an early admiration for actors like Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, and Sidney Poitier. It was by chance that Freeman himself got into acting. He was in junior high school and, as punishment for pulling out a chair from underneath a girl he had a crush on, Freeman was ordered to participate in the school's drama competition. To his surprise, and probably school administrators, the 12-year-old proved to be an immediate natural on the stage, taking top honors in the program.
But while Freeman loved to act, flying—in particular the idea of being a fighter pilot—was in his heart of hearts. And so, upon graduating high school in 1955, Morgan turned down a partial drama scholarship and joined the U.S. Air Force. The military, though, proved to be much different than what he'd expected. Instead of darting around the skies, Freeman was relegated to on-the-ground activity as a mechanic and radar technician. He also realized that he didn't want to be shooting down other people.
"I had this very clear epiphany," he told AARP Magazine. "You are not in love with this; you are in love with the idea of this." In 1959, Freeman left the Air Force and tried his fortunes out West, moving to Hollywood to see if he could make it as an actor. It wasn't an easy life. He took acting classes and struggled to find work. In the early 1960s, he moved again, this time to New York City, where more petty day jobs and nighttime auditions followed.
Big Break
In 1967, the same year he married Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, Freeman's big career break came when he landed a part in an all African-American Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! starring Pearl Bailey. Around that time, Freeman also performed in an off-Broadway production of The Nigger Lovers.
Some national exposure followed in 1971, when he started appearing regularly on The Electric Company, a public television-produced children's TV show that focused on teaching kids how
profile name: Morgan Freeman profile occupation:
Your Connections
Sign in with Facebook to see how you and your friends are connected to famous icons.
Profile Connections
Included In These Groups
-
Famous Black Entertainers
View groupBrowse notable black entertainers such as Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy, and Oprah Winfrey.
Famous Black Entertainers 145 people in this group
-
Screen Presidents 13 people in this group
-
Best Supporting Actor Oscar Winners 46 people in this group

Mark Zuckerberg
Mobsters
Icons of the Wild West
Robin Gibb
My Ghost Story
Mobsters
Robert Downey Jr
Margaret Thatcher
Marilyn Monroe
I Survived



