Morgan Freeman

Born June 1, 1937, in Memphis and raised in Mississippi, Freeman began acting in school plays, studied theater in Los Angeles, and spent his early career on stage. He gained recognition in the 1970s on the children's show The Electric Company, then earned an Obie for Coriolanus and a Tony nomination in 1978 for The Mighty Gents. His first Oscar nomination came with Street Smart in 1987; two more followed for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption before he won Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby in 2004, playing a former boxer in Clint Eastwood's corner. The decades since have pulled him between prestige (Invictus, Gone Baby Gone) and franchises (Lucius Fox in Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, the Now You See Me films), while his narration work - March of the Penguins, Through the Wormhole, The Story of God - made that voice a genre unto itself. He co-founded Revelations Entertainment in 1996 and directed Bopha! in 1993, but the core remains: six decades, one Academy Award, and a presence that holds the room whether he's speaking or not.