Morgan Freeman is a successful and widely respected American actor and director, who has received 4 Oscar nominations along with winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar Award for the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee in June 1937. He lived with his grandmother in Mississippi as a child while his parents moved to Chicago to find work. His parents later got divorced, and when Freeman’s grandmother passed away, he moved around with his mother until she finally settled in Greenwood, Mississippi. He had always been interested in watching movies and admired the famous actors of his day such as Gary Cooper and Sidney Poitier. However, he had no intention of taking up acting as a career himself until a chance incident in high school showed that he had the talent to perform on stage. He was forced to be in his high school play as a punishment for a prank he had pulled, but to everyone’s surprise, he took the stage like a natural.
Although he was offered a partial drama scholarship when he graduated from high school in 1955, he instead enrolled in the U.S. Air Force to become a fighter pilot, which had always been a passion of his. He was sorely disappointed with his time there. In his mind, he had pictured himself flying fighter jets – instead he was assigned to ground duty as a technician. In 1959, he decided to quit the Air Force and pursue a career in acting. He moved to Hollywood and took acting classes but it was a while before he landed any major roles. He stuck to his decision, despite the fact that he was working petty jobs and giving countless auditions. In the 1960s he moved to New York to try his luck there. His first major role was in a 1967 Broadway play called “Hello, Dolly!” which had an all African American cast. He also married Jeanette Adair Bradshaw that year, and landed a part in another production called “The Nigger Lovers”.
In 1971, he joined the cast of a children’s TV show called “The Electric Company” along with prominent Hollywood stars such as Joan Rivers and
