Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, comedian, and singer. He received acclaim for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the film Ray (2004), winning the Academy Award, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. That same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the crime film Collateral.
Foxx gained his career breakthrough as a featured player in the sketch comedy show In Living Color until the show’s end in 1994. Following this success, he was given his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, in which he starred, co-created and produced from 1996 to 2001. He gained prominence for his film roles in Booty Call (1997), Ali (2001), Jarhead (2005), Dreamgirls (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Horrible Bosses (2011), Django Unchained (2012), Annie (2014), Baby Driver (2017), and Soul (2020). He played the supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). For playing Walter McMillian in Just Mercy (2019) he received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
As a musician, Foxx earned two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, with his features on the singles “Slow Jamz” by Twista alongside Kanye West, and “Gold Digger” by Kanye West. His single “Blame It” won him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Four of his five studio albums have charted in the top ten of the U.S. Billboard 200: Unpredictable (2005), which topped the chart, Intuition (2008), Best Night of My Life (2010), and Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses (2015). Since 2017, Foxx has served as the host and executive producer of the Fox game show Beat Shazam. In 2021, he wrote his autobiography Act Like You Got Some Sense.
Born in Terrell, Texas, Foxx is the son of Darrell Bishop (renamed Shahid Abdula following his conversion to Islam), who sometimes worked as a stockbroker, and Louise Annette Talley Dixon. Shortly after his birth, Foxx was adopted and raised by his mother’s adoptive parents, Esther Marie (Nelson), a domestic worker and nursery operator, and Mark Talley, a yard worker. He has had little contact with his birth parents, who were not part of his upbringing. He was raised in the black quarter of Terrell, which at the time was a racially segregated community. He has often acknowledged his grandmother’s influence as one of the greatest reasons for his success.
Foxx began playing the piano when he was five years old. He had a strict Baptist upbringing and as a teenager was a part-time pianist and choir leader in Terrell’s New Hope Baptist Church. His natural talent for telling jokes was already in evidence as a third grader, when his teacher used him as a reward: if the class behaved well, Foxx would tell them jokes. He attended Terrell High School, where he received top grades and played basketball and football (as quarterback). His ambition was to play for the Dallas Cowboys, and he was the first player in the school’s history to pass for more than 1,000 yards. He also sang in a band called Leather and Lace. After high school, Foxx received a scholarship to United States International University, where he studied musical and performing arts composition.
Written by Dianne Washington