Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman is an acclaimed American actor, producer, and narrator, renowned for his versatility across genres including drama, historical epics, thrillers, action-adventure, science fiction, and comedy. Some of his most acclaimed and highest-grossing films, according to Rotten Tomatoes, include Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, The Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Knight trilogy, and Seven.
Freeman is also celebrated for his distinctive voice, having narrated numerous documentaries such as The Long Way Home (1997), March of the Penguins (2005), Through the Wormhole (2010-2017), The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (2016-2019), Our Universe (2022), and Life on Our Planet (2023). He made his directorial debut with the drama Bopha! (1993).
Over a career spanning six decades, Freeman has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and nominations for a Grammy Award and a Tony Award. He has also been honored with the Kennedy Center Honor (2008), the AFI Life Achievement Award (2011), the Cecil B. DeMille Award (2012), and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award (2018). In a 2022 readers’ poll by Empire, he was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time.

Morgan Freeman's early life laid the foundation for his successful acting career.

• Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee.
• Freeman was raised in Mississippi, where he began acting in school plays.
• As an infant, Freeman was sent to live with his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi.
• During his childhood, he moved frequently, living in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago.
• He made his acting debut at the age of nine, playing the lead role in a school play.
• He then attended Broad Street High School, which today serves as Threadgill Elementary School in Greenwood.
• At the age of 12, he won a statewide drama competition.
• At 16, Freeman contracted pneumonia.
• Freeman graduated from high school in 1955.
• He turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, choosing instead to enlist in the United States Air Force.
• He served as an Automatic Tracking Radar repairman, rising to the rank of Airman First Class.
• After completing his service from 1955 to 1959, he moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse.
• He studied theater arts at Los Angeles City College.
• There, a teacher encouraged him to explore a career in dance.
• Freeman worked as a dancer at the 1964 World's Fair.
• He was also a member of the Opera Ring musical theater group in San Francisco.
• He rose to fame in the 1970s for his role in the children’s television series The Electric Company.

Morgan Freeman's family roots trace back to slaves who migrated from North Carolina to Mississippi.

• He is the son of Mamie Edna, a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber who passed away from cirrhosis in 1961.
• He has three older siblings.
• Some of Morgan Freeman's great-great-grandparents were enslaved and migrated from North Carolina to Mississippi.
• His white maternal great-great-grandfather had lived with and was buried beside his black great-great-grandmother in the segregated South, as the two could not legally marry at the time.
• Freeman was married to Jeanette Adair Bradshaw from October 22, 1967, to November 18, 1979.
• He later married Myrna Colley-Lee on June 16, 1984.
• The couple separated in December 2007 and divorced on September 15, 2010.
• Freeman has four children: Alfonso, Deena, Morgana, and Saifoulaye.
• Freeman and Colley-Lee also helped raise his step-granddaughter from his first marriage, E'dena Hines.
• Hines was tragically murdered in New York City on August 16, 2015, at the age of 33.