Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. is his full name.1)
He was born in Mount Vernon, New York on December 28, 1954.2)
Denzel Washington, Sr., his father, was a Pentecostal pastor, and his mother, Lennis (Lowe), was a beautician.3)
Denzel Washington has a younger brother named David and an older sister named Lorice.4)
Denzel enrolled at Fordham University after graduating from high school, intending to pursue a career in journalism.5)
He caught the acting bug after appearing in many undergraduate theatrical performances. After earning a B.A. in Drama and Journalism in 1977, Washington moved to San Francisco to pursue a scholarship at the American Conservatory Theater. He barely stayed for a year before going to New York to pursue a professional acting career.6)
In St. Mary's City, Maryland, he had his first paid acting job in a summer stock theater stage show. “Wings of the Morning” is a drama about the establishment of Maryland (now the state of Maryland) and the early days of the Maryland colonial assembly (a legislative body).7)
He made his feature film debut in the comedy A Carbon Copy (1981).8)
Washington's breakthrough came when he featured as Dr. Phillip Chandler in NBC's television medical drama St. Elsewhere, which aired from 1982 to 1988.9)
He also appeared in various television, motion picture, and stage productions, including A Soldier's Story (1984), Hard Lessons (1986), and Power(1986).10)
He got an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1987 for his performance as South African anti-apartheid political leader Steven Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom.11)
Washington earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1989 for his performance of Tripp, the fugitive slave in Edward Zwick's stirring historical drama Glory (1989).12)
Spike Lee's biographical film Malcolm X (1992) featured him as the titular character. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his depiction of a Muslim African-American civil rights activist.13)
In 1993 he portrayed lawyer Joe Miller in the 1993 drama picture Philadelphia, one of the first Hollywood films to address problems such as homosexuality, AIDS, and homophobia.14)
Washington featured in The Hurricane in 1999, a film about boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, whose triple murder conviction was reversed after he served nearly 20 years in jail. For the role, Washington received a Golden Globe Award in 2000 and a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.15)