Biography

It's hard to dispute Saturday Night Live's status as TV's most prolific movie star nursery. John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, James Belushi, then later Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Chris Farley and Will Ferrell all served time on the show, as did many more minor successes. 

But In Living Color, the early Nineties' predominantly black equivalent to SNL has also proved to be a breeding-ground of considerable note. First Damon Wayans stepped into the big leagues with The Last Boy Scout. Then Jim Carrey went several steps further. 

The show's creator, Keenen Ivory Wayans, and his brothers would score big with the Scary Movie franchise. There'd even be glittering screen careers for the series' choreographer and one of its Fly Girl dancers - Rosie Perez and Jennifer Lopez respectively.

Jamie Foxx would have to wait a little longer than the others. Sure, In Living Color would bring him his own TV series and a recording career, and would lend him huge kudos on the stand-up circuit. But this most talented of entertainers was after the big prize - a serious acting career as a serious headliner. After several raucous black comedies, he was taken on by the heavyweight likes of Oliver Stone and Michael Mann, honed his craft then, in 2004, a full decade after the demise of In Living Color, he broke through into the big-time - first as the taxi driver terrorised by Tom Cruise's hitman in Collateral, then as a stunningly accurate Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's acclaimed biopic, Ray. 

Awards showered down on him, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and those serious parts came his way. With Carrey still struggling to break away from comic stereotyping, it could be argued that Foxx was the first ILC alumnus to really make the thespian grade.

He was born Eric Morlon Bishop on the 13th of December, 1967, in Terrell, Texas, a town of 14,000 some 40 kms east of Dallas along Route 80. His upbringing was unusual, to say the least. Thirteen years earlier, his mother, Louise Annette, had been adopted by Mark and Esther Talley. Before young Eric's birth, the now teenager's marriage to Shaheed Abdulah was in trouble. 

Maybe a move to Dallas would put them back on track, a new start, without the baby (it didn't work, they'd divorce in 1974). So, at just 7 months old, Eric was, like his mother, adopted by the Talleys - his grandparents were now his parents, and his mother his sister.

In many respects, this situation was good for the boy. Esther Talley was at this time 57 years old. Coming from an older generation, she was ready and able to instil discipline into him, not being shy with the belt and switch. She was also a schoolteacher and had a library of books. 

In the summers she ran a nursery school for the community's children, teaching them to read. Eric would enjoy her closest attention, quickly excelling in the academic field. She'd also, from the age of 5, encourage him to learn piano - again, he'd prove something of a prodigy. 

Importantly, there'd be religion, too, and regular attendances at Terrell's New Hope Baptist Church. and, in a successful attempt to widen the boy's horizons, from the age of 7 she'd take him on bus-trips across the country - Florida, Atlanta, Canada being just three of their destinations.

Naturally, one of the reasons for the huge effort Eric put into his studies was that he wanted to impress his parents. His mother's visits were irregular. He recalls how when she came over from Dallas in a new hat, his heart and the whole church would light up. Then there were the dark disappointments when she failed to show. His father, now a stockbroker, was harder to please. His hardcore Muslim belief that Baptist Eric could not be his son did not make matters easier.

But Shaheed did at least have genetic gifts to bestow. A former athlete, he saw Eric inherit his strong physique, and the boy's natural aptitudes and strict work ethic make him an all-round sports star. In particular, he'd excel at American football, at Terrell High School eventually becoming the first choice quarterback of the Tigers. The first school quarterback to pass for 1000 yards in a season, his exploits would be covered in Dallas newspapers (in his later career, these skills would prove invaluable).

As if starring in class, on the playing field and in church (by 13 he was being paid as their musical director) were not enough, Eric was also a top Boy Scout and, having discovered a talent for comedy and mimicry, a budding entertainer. He put on shows called An Afternoon With Eric Bishop and was even used by the teachers as a carrot for the other kids. If they behaved and did their work, Eric would be permitted to perform. Incredibly, in his later school years, the boy would find time to form his own R&B band, the rather un-Baptistly monickered Leather And Lace.

In some ways, Eric's teens sound idyllic. He was a success, THE success in every areas of his studies. He'd spend his free time with his buddies down on the teen-packed town strip, cruising the usual route round the Sonic Drive In burger joint on West Moore Avenue, drinking sodas, watching the girls, then cruising round again. In football-obsessed Texas, he could have pretty much his own way. But there was a darker side to life in Terrell. 

The railroad neatly split the town into two, and so did a racial divide still so prevalent in the south. In later years, Foxx would recall being chased down the street by white kids with fake guns. As one of two African-Americans on the tennis team, he arrived on the team bus for a match in nearby Grand Saline to be greeted by 3rd and 4th graders shouting "Porch monkey!" at him. In one amazing story, he tells of how, at 15, he turned up with a friend to play piano at a party at the mayor's house. A white man answered the door. "What's going on here?" he asked. "I'm here to play at the Christmas party, sir", replies Eric. "What are two of you doing here?" "He drove me, sir, I don't have my licence. Is there a problem?" "Yeah, there's a problem. I can't have two niggers in the house at once". Eric's friend had to leave, there were no second thoughts. "I had got so used to being called Nigger," said Foxx "that it wasn't no big thing. I gotta play so I can get paid". 

So in he went and, sporting a tuxedo provided by the host, he played, listening all the while to a succession of "nigger jokes" from the guests. When he was done, the hostess had the good grace to apologise but, when he tried to give back the tuxedo, it was refused. Now that he'd worn it, how could a self-respecting white man possibly put it on again? Eric left without comment, even pleased. After all, the embarrassed hostess had paid him $100, a huge amount at the time.

And there was one other painful process to be gone through. When he was just 17, Mark Talley died. Eric would attempt to revive him when things came to a head at 3am that fateful day, but to no avail.

As such an all-round talent, it was no surprise when, in 1986, Eric won a place at San Diego's United States International University, on a music scholarship. Here he would study classical piano and music theory, being taught by Russian masters. As Esther would have wished, his scope and experience was widened further by the fact that his peers were prodigies hailing from 81 different countries. To finance himself, he played for jazz and ballet classes, but his ambitions were not pointing him into such classy arenas. Since his time in Terrell, Eric had designs upon becoming a superstar and, with his carefully created Jheri curl, he was aiming to be the next Lionel Richie.

It was this desire that, in 1988, caused him to drop out of college and move upstate to seek his fortune in Los Angeles. He'd been here many times during college weekends, hanging out, plotting his rise to the top. Now, in big shades and with his curls longer, he attempted to break into the music industry. It would have been difficult, but he really didn't have time to fail. In 1989, visiting a Comedy Club open mic night, he was dared by a girlfriend to give it a go. 

He was still practising his impressions, purely by way of entertaining his friends, so he tried a few of these on the club's audience. President Ronald Reagan, Bill Cosby as a gangster, Jesse Jackson as a saint, Louis Farrakhan with a falsetto lisp - they loved it. And their applause hooked him - he changed career direction. While toiling selling shoes at Thom McCann, he began to work on an act, gigging around the country wherever possible. As ever, he was meticulous in giving himself an edge. He worked out which material went down best with white audiences, and with black, seeking the across-the-board success of his heroes, Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor (both of whom he copied in his earlier performances). And he changed his name. 

Realising that the paucity of female comedians meant that women would always be called up on open mic nights, and always given more time, he chose the deliberately confusing Jamie Foxx. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, one section of his fledgling act saw him do Ray Charles, head bobbing wildly, performing the theme to The Brady Bunch.

If his comic career began well, it quickly went into overdrive. 1990 saw the TV debut of In Living Color, a riotous success that creator Keenen Ivory Wayans wished to continue. For the second season, he began to scout for fresh talent to back up his brothers and the crazy Carrey, and came upon Foxx. With his raft of impressions, now of street characters as well as celebrities, he would be perfect for such a sketch show. 

He was in and would stay in till the show folded in 1994. Along with Carrey's Fireman Bill, his man-hungry ghetto girl Wanda, with her big lips, big butt, blonde wig and catchphrase "I'm gonna rock your world", was one of the show's most popular characters.

During his run on ILC, Jamie also made a brief appearance in Robin Williams' Toys and featured on three occasions as Crazy George in Charles S Dutton's sit-com Roc. Most of his energy, though, aside from his burgeoning stand-up career, was being spent on a revival of his musical ambitions. 

A deal with a major label saw him, in 1994, release an album, Peep This which, on the back of a heady tour, reached Number 12 on the R&B charts. A single, Infatuation, would stall at 92 in the Nationals, but still Peep This sold 300,000.

Despite this moderate success (or perhaps because it was moderate and not blockbusting), Foxx felt that audiences were not comfortable with him flipping between disciplines and pushed forward instead in his onscreen efforts. After a few TV guest appearances and voiceovers, he returned to the Silver Screen with The Truth About Cats And Dogs. 

This was a Cyrano De Bergerac update with Janeane Garofalo as a (supposedly) dumpy radio veterinarian who, terrified that potential beau Ben Chaplin won't fancy her, gets model friend Uma Thurman to take her place. Foxx would add some much-needed comic relief as Chaplin's best buddy. 

Next would come The Great White Hype, a boxing comedy-drama where shady promoter Samuel L. Jackson, recognising that there's extra money to be made from mixed-race bouts, sets up a match between his heavyweight champion (Jamie's ILC cohort Damon Wayans) and a white has-been. Foxx would again steal all his scenes, playing the manager of Michael Jace, the disgruntled Number 2 in the ratings. Coming on like a genuine tough-guy, he would hilariously transform into a snivelling yes-man whenever challenged.

These roles gave Foxx his first foot-hold in Hollywood. What kept him in the public eye, though, was his own TV show, scored through his ILC efforts, which would run for 5 seasons from 1996 to January, 2001. This would be a sit-com which saw Jamie, unsurprisingly, as a wannabe actor from Texas, who comes to try his luck in Hollywood and ends up working at his uncle's hotel (uncle being played by Garrett Morris, the one black face in the original Saturday Night Live team). 

The jokes would rely on Foxx's many mishaps, as well as his continual irritation of an uptight accountant and endless attempts to pick up a gorgeous desk clerk who's just not interested. The guest stars would reflect Foxx's social inroads into the worlds of music and film (his parties are legendary), including Ice Cube, Mary J. Blige, Michael Clarke Duncan and Ben Vereen.

The Jamie Foxx Show gave its star the kudos to continue making movies and, in 1997, he moved on to Booty Call, an incredibly raunchy sex comedy in which he co-starred with Tommy Davidson, another ILC alumnus. This saw Jamie on a double date with Davidson, having been matched up with Vivica A. Fox. Initially unimpressed with her suitor and particularly his dreadlocks (she comes up with the classic put-down "That tarantula-head fool looks like Predator!"), she eventually goes for him, and the two couples engage in all manner of kinky naughtiness. At one point, Vivica reveals that she's turned on by her lovers pretending to be Jesse Jackson, allowing Jamie to score once more with his well-worn impression.

The next year saw a reunion with Ice Cube for The Players Club, written and directed by the former NWA rapper. Lisa Raye would star as an abandoned young mother who decides to make ends meet by stripping at the gentlemen's establishment of the title. A serious examination of the whys and wherefores of exploitation, the movie also involved gangsters, brutality and careful characterisations, Jamie appearing as the club DJ, who watches out for the girls, charms everyone but eventually loathes his life amidst this seediness.

Foxx's next effort, Held Up, would be less successful. This saw him traveling across country with girlfriend Nia Long in a classic Studebaker. Unfortunately, when she discovers he's spent most of their money on the car, she dumps him in a small desert town where, even more unfortunately, he's held hostage in a convenience store along with assorted other misfits. 

The film tried to be a comic Dog Day Afternoon, but came off more like a half-assed Airheads. Nevertheless, Jamie, resisting the temptation to put in the kind of over-the-top performance Chris Rock or Martin Lawrence might have delivered, still showed true signs of potential.

This potential came to real fruition in his next project, Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. This saw Al Pacino as a grizzled American football coach struggling to lead the Miami Sharks from a losing streak to the play-offs, while new young owner Cameron Diaz is seeking to move the Sharks franchise to another town. Pacino is horribly undermined when star quarterback Dennis Quaid is injured and his replacement is stretchered off in the same match. Enter Jamie as Willie Beamen, the third-string QB, who's so nervous he throws up in the huddle. After this, though, he comes good. 

It was a great role for Foxx, allowing him to transform from vulnerability and self-doubt to cocksure vanity, and finally to apologetic understanding as Pacino battles to control his new hero. And it could so easily never have happened. At his audition, Stone was deeply unimpressed, telling Foxx that he couldn't act, that he was a slave to television, that he was coming over like a comedian, that he wouldn't waste one inch of film on him. 

But when Foxx made a video showing the full extent of his quarterback abilities, Stone realised that he had struck gold. He hired Foxx, who immediately dropped out of his current project, The Wood.

Any Given Sunday was not a hit, but it did reveal Jamie's ability to cut it in a major movie alongside top-grade actors. He moved on to a starring role in Bait, Antoine Fuqua's deadpan, attitude-packed action comedy, where a getaway driver is nabbed after sneaking off with $42 million in gold. 

When he dies, the Feds look to Jamie, the crook's trash-talking cell-mate, to reveal where the bullion is hidden. This they do by implanting him with miniature audio and tracking devices, using him as a lure to catch the masterminds behind the robbery. Once again, though the movie was no classic, Foxx made the most of his opportunity, playing Alvin Sanders as a man who uses a wittily foul-mouthed persona as a front, only gradually revealing the depth of his personality. As said, he was clearly no Martin Lawrence.

Having appeared in the brief short Date From Hell with his Players Club co-star Lisa Raye, Foxx moved on to another major event-picture, Michael Mann's Ali. Following the great boxer's progress from 1964 through to the Rumble In the Jungle 10 years later, this saw Will Smith put in a monumental performance, yet still Jamie, playing Ali's inspirational and bizarre right-hand man Drew "Bundini" Brown, was neither over-awed nor out-done. 

During Ali's peak years, he was enigmatic and hilariously obtuse, coming up with the classic "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" line. Then, during the tough middle years of jail and persecution, he falls even harder than his employer, drinking heavily and even selling the champ's belt for drug-money.

Throughout all this, Foxx was continuing with his comedy career and, in 2002, starred in his first HBO special, I Might Need Some Security. Gradually, he was being accepted as a performer of many talents. Onscreen, he increased his experience with a small role in Shade, where sting-merchants Gabriel Byrne and Thandie Newton team up with card-shark Stuart Townsend to try to take down the legendary Dean (played by a back-on-form Sylvester Stallone). Jamie would provide some light relief as a lippy fool they rip off to help finance their big score - problematically for them, he's a bag-man for the Mob.

Now Foxx was well into his inexorable rise and 2004 would see him finally, undeniably convince the world of his "serious" acting abilities. He began with the tough drama Redemption, playing Stan "Tookie" Williams, the co-founder of the notorious Crips gang, sentenced to death and languishing on San Quentin's Death Row since 1981. 

In a compelling performance, Jamie would show Williams at his toughest, then follow him through the process of writing morality tales for children that would see him as the only person to be nominated for Nobel Prizes for peace and literature. He would perform several stirring monologues explaining how gang-life is an attractive escape from grinding poverty and hopelessness.

Next would come the appealing Breakin' All The Rules where he played a writer on a failing men's magazine, who quits when he's asked to lay off members of staff. Also dumped by his fiancee, he turns a number of unsent letters to her into The Break Up Handbook For Men, pointing out the signs to look for so you can dump her before she dumps you. 

Consequently he becomes a kind of relationship guru to his former editor, Peter MacNicol, a poor fellow about to be consumed by a maneater. Breakin' All The Rules was mild fun, but now Foxx returned to Michael Mann and serious business with Collateral. This was a superior thriller that saw him as an LA cab-driver who's hired for the night by Tom Cruise (Jamie might have played alongside Cruise earlier had he not failed an audition for Cuba Gooding's part in Jerry Maguire). 

Very quickly, though, it turns out that Cruise is a hit-man with a list of people to nail, and so we follow the mis-matched pair around the city as they both reveal their failings and strengths and Foxx tries to work out both how to escape the killer and save his intended final victim, Jada Pinkett Smith (a co-star in Ali). It was film-making at its best, intriguing and exciting, and a $100 million hit.

But Foxx's success in Collateral was dwarfed by the world's reaction to his next performance, as Ray Charles in the biopic Ray. Taylor Hackford (the devilishly fortunate husband of Helen Mirren) had been attempting to bring the project to the screen since 1987, but all the studios considered it to be TV movie fodder. When Hackford discovered Foxx, though, who, as said, had already done public impressions of Charles, the finance finally arrived. 

Foxx met with Charles (who, sadly, would die before the movie was released), was fitted with blinding prosthetics and, using his extraordinary talents for mimicry and music, produced one of the best screen performances in years - following Charles from 1930 to 1966, as he struggled with heroin addiction, fought racism, indulged in serial adultery and enjoyed a storming craeer that saw him invent Soul, then go mainstream and even challenge the world as a black man playing Country. What a story.

Ray was the film that everyone noticed, but it actually completed an impressive hat-trick (with Redemption and Collateral) that saw him become the first person ever to be Golden Globe-nominated for three separate roles in the same year (he'd win for Ray). He'd also find himself nominated twice for Oscars, for Ray and Collateral, winning Best Actor for Ray. 

Amazingly, 2004 had also seen him Grammy-nominated for his vocal on Twista's US Number One hit Slow Jamz (also featuring Kanye West). This would kick-start his musical career as he'd now sign with Clive Davis's J label and, the next year, release his second solo album.

Actually, 2004 was a hell of year. Aside from the glory, Foxx also suffered the death of his beloved grandmother/mother, at the age of 96. He was also up in court to answer for an incident in April 2003. In New Orleans to shoot Ray, he'd gone to Harrah's Casino regularly. One night, though, there was trouble when co-star Regina King was asked for ID and kicked up a stink. Security was called, Foxx and his younger half-sister Deirdra Dixon (a hair-stylist who worked with Foxx on Collateral) became involved, Deirdra was manhandled, Foxx piled in, it was a mess. 

Eventually, charged with battery against a cop, he pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and was given a $1,500 fine and two years probation. There'd be more problems in 2005 when construction worker Mark Pithian got hold of photos of Jamie having sex. He said he'd found them in a dumpster, Foxx claimed they were stolen from his Las Vegas home. Pithian claimed he was subsequently battered by a bunch of Foxx's associates, Jamie said he didn't care that much about the shots as they didn't feature animals or other men. The case continued.

Onscreen, 2005 saw Jamie move on to Stealth, filmed in Australia by Rob "The Fast And The Furious" Cohen. This would see Foxx alongside Josh Lucas and Jessica Biel, as a hot-shot pilot who must help take down an AI flyer who's gone dangerously out-of-control. 

Then would come Jarhead, directed by Sam Mendes and based on a book by former marine Anthony Swofford detailing his experiences during the Gulf War. Down and dirty, with troops shot at by both sides, teeming with fear and humanity, this attempted to show the real life of the modern soldier, with Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford and Jamie as the marine lifer and squad commander whose job it is to turn his men into fighting machines. 

Following this, it was rumoured, would come a third project with Michael Mann when he'd join Colin Farrell in a big screen version of Mann's hit TV show Miami Vice (interestingly, Rob Cohen had earlier directed episodes of this).

Jamie Foxx was now made. A successful comic, musician and actor, he had done more than anyone could have expected of him. Reconciled with his father, he also had a love he had long craved, the early denial of which had set him on the path to success. He did not, he claimed, wish to deny such love to his own daughter, Corinne, born in 1995. 

Though she'd live with her mother, he'd be a hands-on parent, helping her with her homework and even coaching her track team. He was good with kids, and would often return to Terrell High School to offer his encouragement and support. As far as adult love went, he'd be long-linked to graphic designer and actress Leila Arcieri, a former Miss San Francisco and Coors beer model who appeared in (Rob Cohen's) xXx and, alongside Foxx's hero Eddie Murphy, in Daddy Day Care.

When discussing his career, the super-confident Foxx says that Eric Bishop is Clark Kent while Jamie Foxx is Superman. This gives the wrong impression. Most of Foxx's big breaks have come through skills he learned as a kid and abilities he was born with. Much of the credit must surely go to Eric. ~Dominic Wills.

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