Tag: Jamie Foxx

Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer, songwriter, producer, and comedian. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical film Ray. The same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the crime film Collateral. As of spring 2017, Foxx serves as host and executive producer of the new Fox game show Beat Shazam.

Other acting roles include Staff Sergeant Sykes in Jarhead (2005), record executive Curtis Taylor, Jr. in Dreamgirls (2006), Detective Ricardo Tubbs in the 2006 film adaptation of TV series Miami Vice, the title role in the film Django Unchained (2012), the supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and gangster Bats / Leon Jefferson III in Baby Driver (2017). Foxx also starred in the 1990-94 sketch comedy show In Living Color and his own television show from 1996 to 2001, the sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, in which he played Jamie King, Jr. Foxx also starred in the 2014 film Annie, in which he played Will Mellor.

Foxx is also a Grammy Award-winning musician, producing four albums which have charted in the top ten of the US 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).

Foxx was born in Terrell, Texas. He is the son of Louise Annette Talley Dixon and Darrell Bishop; his father sometimes worked as a stockbroker, and changed his name to Shahid Abdula after converting to Islam. 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. Foxx was raised in the black quarter of Terrell, at the time a racially segregated community. As a teenager, he was a part-time pianist and choir leader in Terrell’s New Hope Baptist Church, and had a strict Baptist upbringing.

Foxx began playing the piano when he was five years old. As a second grader, he was so talented in telling jokes that his teacher used him as a reward. If the class behaved, Foxx would tell them jokes. Foxx attended Terrell High School, where he received top grades, played basketball and football as quarterback, and had an ambition to play for the Dallas Cowboys. 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 completing high school, Foxx received a scholarship to United States International University, where he studied classical music and composition. He has often acknowledged his grandmother’s influence in his life as one of the greatest reasons for his success.

Foxx first told jokes at a comedy club’s open mic night in 1989, after accepting a girlfriend’s dare. When he found that female comedians were often called first to perform, he changed his name to Jamie Foxx, feeling that it was a name ambiguous enough to disallow any biases. He chose his surname as a tribute to the black comedian Redd Foxx. Foxx joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991, where his recurrent character Wanda also shared a name with Redd’s friend and co-worker, LaWanda Page. Following a recurring role in the comedy-drama sitcom Roc, Foxx went on to star in his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, from 1996 to 2001.

Foxx made his film debut in the 1992 comedy Toys. His first dramatic role came in Oliver Stone’s 1999 film Any Given Sunday, where he was cast as a hard-partying American football player, partly because of his own football background. In 2001, Foxx starred opposite Will Smith in Michael Mann’s biographical drama Ali. Three years later, Foxx played taxi driver Max Durocher in the film Collateral alongside Tom Cruise, for which he received outstanding reviews and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the Fox record label) entitled Peep This, which was not commercially successful. In 2003, Foxx made a cameo in Benzino’s music video for “Would You”, which features LisaRaye McCoy and Mario Winans.

In 2003, Foxx featured on the rapper Twista’s song, “Slow Jamz”, together with Kanye West, which reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #3 on the UK Singles chart. His second collaboration with Kanye West, “Gold Digger,” in which Foxx sang the Ray Charles-influenced “I Got a Woman” hook, then went straight to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, remaining there for 10 weeks. In 2005, Foxx featured on the single “Georgia” by Atlanta rappers Ludacris and Field Mob, which sampled Ray Charles’ hit “Georgia on My Mind”.

Foxx would also portray Ray Charles in the biographical film Ray (2004), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor[ and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Foxx is the second male in history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for two different movies, Collateral and Ray (the only other male actor to achieve this feat being Al Pacino). In 2005, Foxx was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Foxx released his second studio album, Unpredictable, in December 2005. It debuted at #2, selling 598,000 copies in its first week, rising to #1 the following week and selling an additional 200,000 copies. To date, the album has sold 1.98 million copies in the United States, and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. The album also charted on the UK Albums Chart, where it peaked at #9. Foxx became the fourth artist to have both won an Academy Award for an acting role and to have achieved a #1 album in the U.S, joining Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Barbra Streisand. Foxx’s first single from the album, the title track “Unpredictable” (featuring Ludacris), peaked in the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles and also made the UK Top 20 singles chart; the track samples “Wildflower” by New Birth. The second US single from the album was “DJ Play a Love Song,” which reunited Foxx with Twista. In the UK, the second single was “Extravaganza”, which saw Foxx once again collaborate with Kanye West, although Foxx did not feature in the song’s music video.

At the 2006 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, Foxx won Best Duet/Collaboration with Kanye West for “Gold Digger” and tied with Mary J. Blige’s “Be Without You” for Video of the Year. On December 8, 2006, Foxx received four Grammy Award nominations, which included Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for Love Changes featuring Mary J. Blige, Best R&B Album for Unpredictable, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for Georgia by Ludacris & Field Mob featuring Jamie Foxx, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for Unpredictable featuring Ludacris.

Following on from these successes, Foxx went on to appear in the box-office hits Jarhead, Miami Vice and Dreamgirls, which lifted his profile even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood.

Foxx has two daughters: Corinne Bishop (born 1994) and Annalise (born August 2009). Corinne made her formal debut at the Bal des débutantes in November 2014 and was named Miss Golden Globe 2016 on November 18, 2015.

In 2008, Foxx filmed a public service announcement for Do Something to promote food drives in local communities.

Foxx has been involved in feuds with co-stars LL Cool J and Colin Farrell.

On January 18, 2016, Foxx rescued a young man from a burning vehicle that crashed outside his home. The driver, Brett Kyle, was driving his truck “at a high rate of speed” when the truck left the road, traveled into a drainage ditch, and rolled over multiple times. Kyle was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Written by Dianne Washington