Biography of Denzel Washington: His Career, Ministry, & Net Worth

Born on December 28, 1954, Denzel Washington Jr. is an American filmmaker, producer, and actor. Washington, who has won multiple awards for his dramatic roles on stage and television, was chosen the best actor of the twenty-first century by The New York Times in 2020. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025, the Honorary Palme d’Or in 2025, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019. He has starred in movies that have brought in over $4.9 billion globally.

Denzel Washington started his theatrical career by performing in off-Broadway productions after receiving training at the American Conservatory Theater. His first major roles were in the war movie A Soldier’s Story (1984) and the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988). Playing an American Civil War soldier in the war film Glory (1989) and a corrupt police officer in the criminal thriller Training Day (2001) earned Washington Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor, respectively. Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) were among the films for which he received Oscar nominations.

The Pelican Brief, Philadelphia (both 1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Remember the Titans (2000), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu, Inside Man (both 2006), American Gangster (2007), Unstoppable, The Book of Eli (both 2010), Safe House (2012), 2 Guns (2013), The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023), and Gladiator II (2024) are just a few of the commercially successful movies in which Washington has starred. In addition, Washington is the director of Fences (2016), A Journal for Jordan (2021), The Great Debaters (2007), and Antwone Fisher (2002).

He has performed on stage in The Tragedy of Richard III (1990) and Coriolanus (1979) at The Public Theater. In 1988, he debuted on Broadway in the Ron Milner drama Checkmates. His portrayal of a disillusioned working-class father in the Broadway adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences (2010) earned him the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. In addition, he has performed in the Broadway adaptations of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh (2018), Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (2005) and Othello (2025).

Denzel Washington Early Life

On December 28, 1954, Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. was born in Mount Vernon, New York. Lennis “Lynne” (Lowe), his mother, was born in Georgia and partially reared in Harlem, New York, where she operated a beauty parlor. Born in Buckingham County, Virginia, his father, Denzel Hayes Washington Sr., was a Pentecostal minister who was ordained and employed by the New York City Water Department. He also worked at a S. Klein department store in the area.

Up until 1968, Washington was a student at Mount Vernon’s Pennington-Grimes Elementary School. His mother sent him to Oakland Military Academy, a private preparatory school in New Windsor, New York, when his parents split when he was fourteen years old. Washington subsequently stated, “I wouldn’t have survived in the route I was going, so that choice changed my life. My running mates, who I was hanging out with at the time, have since spent perhaps 40 years in prison. The streets got them, even though they were good folks. He went to Mainland High School in Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1970 to 1971 after Oakland.

He expressed interest in going to Texas Tech University: “We were the Red Raiders while we were growing up in the Mount Vernon Boys Club. Because Texas Tech in Lubbock was known as the Red Raiders and their clothes resembled ours, I aspired to attend there in high school. Rather, he graduated from Fordham University in 1977 with a BA in Drama and Journalism. Under coach P. J. Carlesimo, he was a guard in NCAA basketball at Fordham. After taking a semester off and unable to decide on a major, Washington served as the director of creative arts for the overnight summer camp at the Camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville, Connecticut. One of his coworkers advised that he try acting after he took part in a staff talent show for the campers.

That September, Denzel Washington returned to Fordham with a newfound purpose and enrolled in the Lincoln Center campus to study acting, landing the title parts in Othello by Shakespeare and The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill. After that, he spent a year in graduate school at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California, before moving back to New York to start a career as a professional actor.

Career

The Maryland State play Wings of the Morning, which was written for Washington by incorporating an African-American character/narrator loosely based on the historical figure from early colonial Maryland, Mathias de Sousa, was performed by Washington in summer stock theater in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, during the summer of 1976.

Washington’s first on-screen performance was in the 1977 made-for-television film Wilma, a documentary about sprinter Wilma Rudolph, shortly after he graduated from Fordham. He also had his first Hollywood cameo in the 1981 picture Carbon Copy. For his role as Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Off-Broadway Negro Ensemble Company production of A Soldier’s Play, which debuted on November 20, 1981, he shared an Obie Award for Distinguished Ensemble Performance in 1982.

1976–1989: Initial roles and ascent to fame

The Maryland State play Wings of the Morning, which was written for Denzel Washington by incorporating an African-American character/narrator loosely based on the historical figure from early colonial Maryland, Mathias de Sousa, was performed by Washington in summer stock theater in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, during the summer of 1976.

Washington’s first on-screen performance was in the 1977 made-for-television film Wilma, a documentary about sprinter Wilma Rudolph, shortly after he graduated from Fordham. He also had his first Hollywood cameo in the 1981 picture Carbon Copy. For his role as Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Off-Broadway Negro Ensemble Company production of A Soldier’s Play, which debuted on November 20, 1981, he shared an Obie Award for Distinguished Ensemble Performance in 1982.

His role as Dr. Phillip Chandler in the 1982–1988 television medical drama St. Elsewhere gave him a significant break in his career. He was among the few African-American actors who starred in the whole six-year duration of the show. In addition, he starred in a number of theater, television, and movie productions, including the 1986 films Power, Hard Lessons, and A Soldier’s Story. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1987 for his role as South African anti-apartheid political activist Stephen Biko in Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom.

Washington’s performance in the 1989 film Glory, which portrayed a proud, self-possessed former slave soldier, earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He starred as the conflicted and disillusioned Reuben James in the films The Mighty Quinn and For Queen and Country that same year. James is a British soldier who, after a distinguished military career, returns to a civilian life where racism and inner-city life breed violence and vigilantism.

Denzel Washington had played the title character in the Public Theater’s adaptation of Richard III by William Shakespeare in the summer of 1990. Washington was hailed as “an actor of range and intensity, is expert at projecting a feeling of controlled rage” by Mel Gussow of this newspaper. Washington played Bleek Gilliam in the Spike Lee movie Mo’ Better Blues that same year. The performance by Washington was hailed by Charles Murray of Empire as a “taut portrayal of the driven musician” and as “like all Lee’s film, Mo’ Better Blues is a real ensemble piece, and the standard of the performances is uniformly excellent: but Washington and Lee deserve extra plaudits.”

He costarred with Sarita Choudhury as Demetrius Williams in the 1991 romance drama Mississippi Masala, which was directed by Mira Nair. The film examines interracial romance between African Americans and Indian Americans, with a primary setting in rural Mississippi. “Washington is an actor of immense and natural charm, and he makes a good match with Sarita Choudhury,” wrote Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, who lauded the two protagonists’ connection.

Reunited with Lee, Washington portrayed the titular character of the historical epic Malcolm X (1992), one of his most renowned portrayals.

When Vincent Canby announced that Denzel Washington was the film’s Critic’s Pick, he said, “It also boasts a magnificent performer who does for “Malcolm X” what Ben Kingsley did for “Gandhi.” In addition to having the appropriate appearance, Mr. Washington possesses the mental toughness, intelligence, and composure to add dramatic intensity to the movie. He was nominated for another Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the Black nationalist leader. In the same year, he founded Mundy Lane Entertainment, a production firm. In the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia (1993), he portrayed the attorney representing a gay man with AIDS, who was portrayed by Tom Hanks, the next year.

According to Sight & Sound, “Having Washington as the lead assured the movie a black audience that might not have been very interested in the issues of a wealthy white gay man with HIV. However, HIV is widespread in inner cities, where it targets women and IV drug users in addition to homosexual males.

In addition to the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing, which was directed by Kenneth Branagh, Washington starred in a number of popular thrillers in the early and mid-1990s, such as The Pelican Brief with Julia Roberts in 1993 and Crimson Tide with Gene Hackman in 1995. He costarred with Meg Ryan in Courage Under Fire in 1996 as a U.S. Army officer who examines a female helicopter commander’s eligibility for the Medal of Honor.