JAMIE FOXX
Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, stand-up comedian, and rhythm & blues singer. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a musical/comedy. As a musician, he has been nominated for several Grammy Awards and had two albums chart highly on the Billboard 200: Unpredictable, which topped the chart, and Intuition.
Foxx joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991 and subsequently played a recurring role in the comedy-drama sitcom Roc. From 1996 to 2001, Foxx starred in his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, and in 1992 he made his film debut.
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 portrayed a hard-partying American football player. He was cast in the role in part because of his background as a football player. Foxx has since evolved into a respected dramatic actor. Following Any Given Sunday, Foxx was featured as 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. His standout performance, however, was his portrayal of Ray Charles in the biopic 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 was Al Pacino. In 2005, Foxx was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Following these successes, Foxx appeared in Jarhead, Miami Vice, and Dreamgirls, which were box-office hits, and lifted his profile even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood. 2007 brought him the lead role in the film The Kingdom opposite Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Ashraf Barhom.
In September 2007, Foxx was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He said, upon receiving the honor, “[it was] one of the most amazing days of my life.”
In May 2009 Foxx played the lead role in the dramatic film The Soloist.
In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the Fox record label) entitled Peep This. His music career shifted into a higher gear when, in 2004, he was featured on rapper Twista’s song, “Slow Jamz”, which also featured Kanye West. The song reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Foxx released his second studio album,Unpredictable in December 2005. It debuted at number two, selling 598,000 copies in its first week. The following week, the album rose to number one, 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. On January 22, 2007, Foxx was on Sirius Satellite Radio, announcing his new channel The Foxxhole. The channel features comedy and music primarily by African-American performers, and features much of Foxx’s own material as well. Foxx released his third album titled Intuition featuring such artists as Kanye West, T.I., Lil Wayne, and T-Pain. On April 6, 2009 Foxx performed the George Strait song “You Look So Good in Love” at the George Strait Artist of the Decade All-Star Concert. Foxx has been a fan of country music for many years. Foxx will release his fourth album, “Body”, on March 2, 2010.
