Age: 71
male
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, he is widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, with The New York Times declaring him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. Over his career, he has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022. After training at the American Conservatory Theatre, Washington began his career in theatre, acting in performances off-Broadway. He first came to prominence in the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988) and in the war film A Soldier's Story (1984). He won two Academy Awards, his first for Best Supporting Actor for playing an American Civil War soldier in the war drama Glory (1989) and his second for Best Actor for playing a corrupt police officer in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). He was Oscar-nominated for his performances in Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). A prominent leading man, Washington also acted in Mo' Better Blues (1990), Mississippi Masala (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Courage Under Fire (1996), Remember the Titans (2000), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), American Gangster (2007), and The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023). Washington directed and starred in the films Antwone Fisher (2002), The Great Debaters (2007), and Fences (2016). On stage, he has acted in productions of both Coriolanus (1979) and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990) at the Public Theater. He made his Broadway debut in the Ron Milner play Checkmates (1988). He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as a disillusioned working-class father in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences (2010). He has also acted in the Broadway revivals of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2005), Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (2018).
Denzel Washington
James Weldon Johnson
for James Weldon Johnson in Rhapsody in Jazz: Roaring Through the Jazz Age
Suggested by juleswb
Rhapsody in Jazz is an exhilarating journey through one of the most transformative periods in history, the 1920s and 1930s. Set against the backdrop of a post-World War I world hungry for change, this series dives deep into the heart of the Jazz Age—a time when jazz music, flappers, speakeasies, and the clash of traditional and modern values defined an entire generation. In Rhapsody in Jazz, viewers are transported to the bustling streets of Harlem, the smoky jazz clubs of Chicago, the glamorous parties of the French Riviera, and the gritty back alleys of prohibition-era America. Each episode weaves together the stories of musicians, artists, writers, and everyday people whose lives were intertwined with the pulse of jazz. From Louis Armstrong's revolutionary trumpet solos to Josephine Baker's electrifying performances in Paris, the series captures the spirit of innovation and rebellion that characterized the era. It explores the racial tensions of the time, the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, the birth of swing, and the impact of jazz on fashion, dance, and the arts.
