He was cast in the 1987 film Street Smart as Fast Black, and the role earned him an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The later '80s and early '90s was an upward climb for Freeman, who began playing prominent roles in big-budget films. He nabbed his second Obie in 1984 for The Gospel at Colonus, and in 1989 was given the award again for his lead role in Driving Miss Daisy (later adapted for the screen, which he starred in.) He continued his theater work and, in 1980, received the Obie Award for his starring role in Coriolanus. He became a familiar face in America through both work on the soap opera Another World and appearances on The Electric Company, a PBS kids' show. His first film appearance was in Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow! In 1971. In the mid-1960s, Freeman first appeared in an off-Broadway production of a play titled The Niggerlovers and then with Pearl Bailey in an all-African-American Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. At the same time, he was often traveling around New York City and to San Francisco, working as a dancer and as a member of a music theater group, respectively. To make ends meet, Morgan worked as a transcript clerk at Los Angeles City College.
Once he moved to Los Angeles after his time in the military, he started taking acting lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse. He graduated from Broad Street High School in 1955 and went on to enlist in the United States Air Force. They eventually moved back to Tennessee.įreeman got the acting bug when he was just nine years old and he played the lead role in a school play. His grandmother died when he was six, and he moved to Chicago to be with his mother, who at that point had separated from his father. Shortly after he was born, his parents relocated to Chicago to find work, and Morgan stayed with his maternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi. Born on Jin Memphis, Tennesee, Morgan Freeman is the son of Mayme Edna and Morgan Porterfield Freeman.