Eric Marlon Bishop
Known professionally as Jamie Foxx, he is an American actor, comedian, and singer. In 1991, he joined the cast as a featured player in the sketch comedy show In Living Color until the show’s end in 1994.
1967
Terrell, Texas, USA
American
Shortly after his birth, Foxx was adopted and raised by his mother’s adoptive parents, Estelle Marie (Nelson), a domestic worker and nursery operator, and Mark Talley, a yard worker. He has had little contact with his birth parents, who were not part of his upbringing. Foxx was raised in the Black quarter of Terrell, which at the time was a racially segregated community. He has often acknowledged his grandmother’s influence in his life as one of the greatest reasons for his success.
Foxx began playing the piano when he was five years old. He had a strict Baptist upbringing and as a teenager he was a part time pianist and choir leader in Terrell’s New Hope Baptist Church. His natural talent for telling jokes was already in evidence as a third grader, when his teacher would use him as a reward, saying that if the class behaved well, Foxx would tell them jokes. Foxx attended Terrell High School, where he received top grades and played basketball and football as quarterback. His ambition was to play for the Dallas Cowboys, and he was the first player in the school’s history to pass for more than 1,000 yards. He also sang in a band called Leather and Lace. After completing high school, Foxx received a scholarship to United States International University, where he studied musical and performing arts composition.
Foxx first told jokes at a comedy club’s open mic night in 1989, after accepting a girlfriend’s dare. When he found that female comedians were often called first to perform, he chose the stage name of Jamie Foxx, which he felt was ambiguous enough to disallow any biases, with his surname being a tribute to the Black comedian Redd Foxx. Foxx joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991, where his recurrent character Wanda also shared a name with Redd’s friend and co-worker, LaWanda Page. Following a recurring role in the comedy drama sitcom Roc, Foxx went on to star in his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show from 1996 to 2001, and he also produced through his company Foxx Hole Productions.
In 2013 Foxx was cast as President James Sawyer in White House Down alongside Channing Tatum. The following year he appeared in The Amazing SpiderMan 2 as the villain Electro, and co-starred with Quvenzhané Wallis in Annie, Sony’s Will Smith and Jay-Z produced update of the comic strip-turned-musical. In 2017 Foxx starred as Bats, a trigger happy gang member, in Edgar Wright’s action film Baby Driver.
Foxx co-created, executive produced and starred in the 2021 Netflix sitcom Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, in which he played the single father of two teenage girls. The series marked Foxx’s return to the sitcom format after The Jamie Foxx Show ended in 2001. The entire eight-episode series premiered April 14, 2021 on Netflix. It was cancelled after one season.
He reprised his role as Electro in SpiderMan: No Way Home (2021), set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In 2021, Foxx released the memoir Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me, which focused on his family life, both as a child and as an adult.
Parents – Darrell Bishop (renamed Shahid Abdula following his conversion to Islam), and Louise Annette Talley Dixon.
Children – Corinne Foxx and Annalise Bishop
https://www.biography.com/actor/jamie-foxx accessed 16/04/2022
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/jamie-foxx-im-hero-rescuing-man-burning-car/story?id=36376681 accessed 16/04/2022
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jamie-Foxx accessed 16/04/2022
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/empire-podcast-397-jamie-foxx/ accessed 16/04/2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Foxx accessed 16/04/2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Jamie_Foxx accessed 16/04/2022
https://www.azquotes.com/author/5083-Jamie_Foxx accessed 16/04/2022
