Pennington Elementary School where Denzel Washington studied.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
1255 W International Speedway Blvd, Daytona Beach, FL 32114, United States
Mainland High School where Denzel Washington studied.
College/University
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Young Denzel Washington.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
The Bronx, NY 10458, United States
Fordham University where Denzel Washington studied.
Career
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1900
Denzel Washington
Gallery of Denzel Washington
1989
Denzel Washington and Robert Townsend onset of the film 'The Mighty Quinn'.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
1993
Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington & Michael Keaton.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
1996
Director Penny Marshall smiles with Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington at the premiere of the film 'The Preacher's Wife'.
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2003
Denzel Washington in the film Man on Fire.
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2014
Denzel Washington in the film The Equalizer.
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Denzel Washington in the film Training Day.
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Denzel Washington in the film Fences.
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Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in the film Philadelphia.
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Denzel Washington in the film Malcolm X.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington in the film Magnificent Seven.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington in the film Magnificent Seven
Gallery of Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington as Doctor Philip Chandler.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington during an interview with host Jay Leno on November 1, 2007.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington and the stars of the new Broadway-bound comedy "Checkmates," are seen during an open rehearsal at the Henry Street Settlement.
Gallery of Denzel Washington
1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015, United States
Denzel Washington attends a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks at Staples Center on December 01, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Cecil B. DeMille Award
2016
Denzel Washington received the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Screen Actors Guild Award
2017
Denzel Washington with the Screen Actors Guild Award.
Academy Awards
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Denzel Washington during The 74th Annual Academy Awards - Press Room at Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California, United States.
Golden Globe Awards
9876 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, United States
Denzel Washington during 57th Annual Golden Globe Awards – Press Room at Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Tony Award
Tony Award winner Denzel Washington attends the 64th Annual Tony Awards at The Sports Club/LA on June 13, 2010 in New York City.
Black Reel Awards
The Black Reel Awards that Denzel Washington received in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2013 and 2017.
MTV Movie & TV Awards
The MTV Movie & TV Awards that Denzel Washington received in 1993 and 2002.
AFI Award
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Honoree Denzel Washington poses for a portrait at the 47th AFI Life Achievement Awards on June 06, 2019 at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California.
BAFTA/LA Britannia Awards
2025 Avenue of the Stars Los Angeles, California, United States
Actor Denzel Washington receives an award from actress Julia Roberts onstage at the 16th Annual British Academy of Film and Television/LA Cunard Britannia Awards at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel on November 1, 2007 in Los Angeles, California.
Silver Berlin Bear
The 50th Film Festival In Berlin, Germany On February 20, 2000-Wim Wenders, Denzel Washington, Milos Forman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Zhang Yimou.
2025 Avenue of the Stars Los Angeles, California, United States
Actor Denzel Washington receives an award from actress Julia Roberts onstage at the 16th Annual British Academy of Film and Television/LA Cunard Britannia Awards at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel on November 1, 2007 in Los Angeles, California.
1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015, United States
Denzel Washington attends a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks at Staples Center on December 01, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Fordham University where Denzel Washington studied.
Connections
Mother: Lennis Washington
Lennis Washington
Spouse: Pauletta Washington
333 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011, United States
Denzel Washington and Pauletta Washington attend the "Safe House" premiere at the SVA Theater on February 7, 2012 in New York City.
Son: John David Washington
John David Washington
Daughter: Olivia Washington
Olivia Washington
Daughter: Katia Washington
100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608, United States
Denzel Washington and his daughter Katia Washington present the Best Movie award onstage during the 18th Annual MTV Movie Awards held at the Gibson Amphitheatre on May 31, 2009 in Universal City, California.
Denzel Washington is an American actor celebrated for his engaging and powerful performances. Throughout his career he has been regularly praised by critics, and his consistent success at the box office helped to dispel the perception that African American actors could not draw mainstream white audiences.
Background
Washington was born on December 28, 1954, in Mount Vernon, New York. His father, Denzel Hayes Washington Sr. (1909–1991), a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, was an ordained Pentecostal minister, and also worked for the New York City Water Department and at a local department store, S. Klein. His mother, Lennis "Lynne" (née Lowe; born 1924), was a beauty parlor owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem.
When he was 14, his parents divorced.
Education
Washington attended Pennington-Grimes Elementary School in Mount Vernon until 1968. His mother sent him to a private preparatory school, Oakland Military Academy in New Windsor, New York. After Oakland, Washington next attended Mainland High School, a public high school in Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1970 to 1971. He was interested in attending Texas Tech University: "I grew up in the Boys Club in Mount Vernon, and we were the Red Raiders. So when I was in high school, I wanted to go to Texas Tech in Lubbock just because they were called the Red Raiders and their uniforms looked like ours."
Washington earned a B.A. in Drama and Journalism from Fordham University in 1977. At Fordham, he played collegiate basketball as a guard under coach P.J. Carlesimo. After a period of indecision on which major to study and taking a semester off, Washington worked as creative arts director at an overnight summer camp, Camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville, Connecticut. He participated in a staff talent show for the campers and a colleague suggested he try acting.
Returning to Fordham that fall with a renewed purpose, Washington enrolled at the Lincoln Center campus to study acting, and where he was given the title roles in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and Shakespeare's Othello. He then attended graduate school at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where he stayed for one year before returning to New York to begin a professional acting career.
On May 18, 1991, Washington was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Fordham University, for having "impressively succeeded in exploring the edge of his multifaceted talent". In 2011, he donated $2 million to Fordham for an endowed chair of the theater department, as well as US$250,000 to establish a theater-specific scholarship at the school. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Morehouse College on May 20, 2007 and an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania on May 16, 2011.
After several successful stage performances in California and New York, Denzel made his screen debut in the comedy Carbon Copy (1981). He first began to receive national attention for his work on the television drama St. Elsewhere (1982–88). For the film Cry Freedom (1987), he portrayed South African activist Stephen Biko, and he received an Academy Award nomination for best-supporting actor. Two years later he won the Oscar for best-supporting actor for his performance as a freed slave fighting in the Union army in the American Civil War film Glory (1989).
Washington’s skill as an actor and his popular appeal as a leading man were firmly established in the 1990s. He gave memorable performances in the romantic comedy Mississippi Masala (1991), the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing (1993), the courtroom drama Philadelphia (1993), the hard-boiled mystery Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and the military thriller Crimson Tide (1995). The latter was the first of several popular movies he made with director Tony Scott. During this time he also frequently worked with director Spike Lee, starring in Mo’ Better Blues (1990), He Got Game (1998), and most significantly Malcolm X (1992). Portraying the civil rights activist Malcolm X, Washington gave a complex and powerful performance and earned an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He received a second best-actor nomination for his portrayal of boxer Rubin Carter in the film The Hurricane (1999).
In Training Day (2001), Washington played a corrupt and violent police detective, the performance for which he became only the second African American actor (the first was Sidney Poitier) to win an Oscar for best actor. After starring in director Jonathan Demme’s 2004 update of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, Washington reteamed with Lee for the crime drama Inside Man (2006). He later appeared as a drug kingpin opposite Russell Crowe’s determined narcotics officer in American Gangster (2007) and as a dispatcher caught in the middle of a subway train hijacking in Scott’s The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009).
In 2010 Washington starred in the post-apocalyptic action drama The Book of Eli and collaborated again with Scott on the action thriller Unstoppable. He subsequently portrayed a rogue CIA agent in South Africa in the spy thriller Safe House (2012) before giving an Oscar-nominated performance in Flight (2012) as a heroic airplane pilot hiding a substance-abuse problem. The action comedy 2 Guns, in which Washington played a covert drug-enforcement operative, followed in 2013. After playing a mysterious vigilante in the action thriller The Equalizer (2014), Washington starred in The Magnificent Seven (2016), a remake of the 1960 classic western. In 2017 he starred in Roman J. Israel, Esq., portraying an idealistic Los Angeles lawyer who begins to question his principles. For his performance, Washington received his eighth Oscar nomination for acting.
Additionally, Washington directed and appeared in the biographical films Antwone Fisher (2002), about a U.S. serviceman with a troubled past, and The Great Debaters (2007), about an inspirational debate coach at an African American college in the 1930s.
In addition to his film work, Washington occasionally acted onstage. In 2005 he starred as Brutus in Julius Caesar. Five years later he appeared in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Fences, a family drama set in the 1950s that explores issues of identity and racism. For his performance, Washington won a Tony Award in 2010. He later directed and starred in a film adaptation (2016) of the play, and his performance earned him an Oscar nomination.
Washington is the son of a Pentecostal preacher and a gospel singer. He grew up in an extremely religious household. He said: "My father was a Pentecostal minister for 50 years. We would say prayers for everything and end with, ‘Amen, God is love…’ The fundamental message is in the Bible, which I’ve read three times from front to back… If you don’t practice love, you’re missing the point. I believe in love thy neighbor."
When Denzel’s parents divorced when he was 14, Denzel admits to rejecting his religion briefly. He also says that the power of his religious feelings overwhelmed him at one point and he backed away: "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit. I know it’s real. I was in the room. My cheeks blew up, I cried like a baby, and it scared me to death. It kind of scared me off (of religion). I backed up and went the other direction."
Now, Denzel is one of Hollywood’s most devout Christians. His faith has influenced the roles he’s played and the fact that he’s been married to the same woman since 1983, a lifetime by Hollywood standards. Washington currently attends the West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles. In 1995, he donated US$2.5 million to help build the new West Angeles Church of God in Christ facility in Los Angeles. Washington says he reads the Bible daily.
Washington has considered becoming a preacher. He stated in 1999, "A part of me still says, 'Maybe, Denzel, you're supposed to preach. Maybe you're still compromising.' I've had an opportunity to play great men and, through their words, to preach. I take what talent I've been given seriously, and I want to use it for good."
Politics
Washington is an Independent voter. He hasn’t spoken too much about his political views. Washington was a staunch Obama supporter during the 2008 presidential campaign. Washington gave $30,800 to the Obama campaign that year and defended the president after 2010’s mid-term elections ushered in a Republican Congress, saying: "I don’t think it’s just directed at Obama, I think people are frustrated. You’ve got to blame somebody, and he’s the boss – he’s got the big target on his head. I think there’s a desire for checks and balances, so now there’s a Republican Party in Congress, and a Democratic Party in the Senate, and a Democratic president, I think it now forces them all to work together."
During the Bush war years, Denzel wouldn’t put down the president, but rather stated his concern for the troops coming home from battle. He said: "Are they getting the support and love they need from us? And maybe that story’s being told, but I sure haven’t seen it that much in the news. Yeah, they’re pointing fingers about who was right and whose wrong and who started what and where the weapons of mass destruction. But these kids are coming home."
Views
Quotations:
"You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That's a part of it."
"Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life."
"I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you're prepared for it."
"I'd be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I'd been given. I'd be more frightened by procrastination and laziness."
"My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don't need another plaque."
"If I am a cup maker, I'm interested in making the best cup I possibly can. My effort goes into that cup, not what people think about it."
"I never really had the classic struggle. I had faith."
"If you don't trust the pilot, don't go."
"If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don't just be mad at him or her."
"My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back."
Membership
Washington has served as the national spokesperson for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1993 and has appeared in public service announcements and awareness campaigns for the organization. In addition, he has served as a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1995. Due to his philanthropic work with the Boys & Girls Club, PS 17X, a New York City Elementary School decided to officially name their school after Washington.
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
1993
Personality
Denzel Washington is open, very intelligent and empathic.
Physical Characteristics:
Washington's height is 5’11.75’’ (182.2 cm), and his weight is 176 pounds (80 kg). Denzel has black hair and brown eyes. Denzel maintains a well-chiselled body with outlined biceps and abs. However, this figure is as a result of much hard work. Denzel has always held his health and fitness in a very high esteem. He regularly works out at the gym and maintains a strict and healthy diet.
During a game of basketball as a kid, Washington broke his pinky finger. It is still crooked and bent 45 degrees from his other fingers. His pinky finger was never set back right.
Denzel has the perfect face. Newsweek did a piece in the 1990s on facial symmetry, as this is an indicator of attractiveness. The author used Washington as a prime example of perfection. The symmetry of one’s face is what makes one the most attractive. The article was called "Biological Basis of the Perceptions of Beauty,” and Washington had the factors that make him perfect. He had the perfectly centered nose perfectly aligned eyes, lips, and ears.
Interests
Washington's workout schedule is pretty tight and intense for men half his age as it involves close to a dozen rounds of boxing throughout the week for 5 days.
He loves dogs.
Politicians
Barack Obama
Sport & Clubs
Washington has been a big fan of the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Lakers since childhood.
Athletes
For his role in The Book of Eli, Washington studied Martial Arts under a Bruce Lee protégé, and he performed all of his own stunts in the hand-to-hand fight scenes.
Music & Bands
Denzel Washington is an Eminem, Nas and Jay-Z fan.
He also loves classical music.
Connections
On June 25, 1983, Washington married Pauletta Pearson, whom he met on the set of his first screen work, the television film Wilma. The couple have four children: John David (b. July 28, 1984), a former football player with the United Football League's Sacramento Mountain Lions (and before that, college football at Morehouse); Katia (b. November 27, 1986) who graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2010; and twins Olivia and Malcolm (b. April 10, 1991). Malcolm graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in film studies, and Olivia played a role in Lee Daniels's film The Butler. In 1995, Denzel and Pauletta renewed their wedding vows in South Africa with Archbishop Desmond Tutu officiating.