Ving Rhames

Irving Rameses Rhames was born on May 12, 1959, in Harlem, New York City, the son of Reather, a stay-at-home mother, and Ernest Rhames, an auto mechanic whose own parents were sharecroppers in South Carolina. Rhames was named after NBC journalist Irving R. Levine. As a young man he played football for Covent Avenue Baptist Church in the Hamilton Heights Historic District, and a junior high school teacher took note of his skill at reading poetry. On impulse he applied to New York's High School of Performing Arts, where he first developed a serious interest in acting.

After high school, Rhames enrolled in the drama program at SUNY Purchase, where fellow student Stanley Tucci gave him the nickname "Ving." He subsequently transferred to the Juilliard School's Drama Division, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1983 as part of Group 12. The Monday following graduation he began performing at Shakespeare in the Park, where his classical training earned him a role in Richard III. His early stage work also encompassed Shakespeare's Richard II, Sophocles' Ajax, off-Broadway productions including Map of the World and Ascension Day, and regional work in plays by Ibsen and Molière.

In the 1984–85 season, Rhames played amateur boxer Omar in the Second Stage Theater revival of Miguel Piñero's prison drama Short Eyes, directed by Kevin Conway and featuring Paul Calderon and Laurence Fishburne among the cast. His Broadway debut followed in December 1985, when he appeared in John Pielmeier's The Boys of Winter, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg at the Biltmore Theatre.

Rhames made his screen debut in January 1985, portraying Young Gabriel in the PBS television film Go Tell It on the Mountain. His theatrical film debut came in 1986 with the role of Jack in Native Son. Television work during the same period included two guest appearances on Miami Vice, a recurring role as Czaja Carnek on the soap opera Another World, and an appearance on Michael Mann's Crime Story. Additional film roles in the late 1980s included Donald "Cinque Mtume" DeFreeze in Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst (1988) and Lieutenant Reilly in Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989).

During the 1990s Rhames built a substantial film career. He appeared as George in the psychological horror film Jacob's Ladder (1990) and as Leroy in Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs (1991). A defining role came in 1994 when he played crime boss Marsellus Wallace in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Two years later he joined the cast of Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible (1996) as ace computer hacker Luther Stickell opposite Tom Cruise, a character he would reprise across all eight installments of the franchise, making him the only actor besides Cruise to appear in every film in the series. Other notable credits from the decade include Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones in Con Air (1997), Mann in John Singleton's historical drama Rosewood (1997), and Buddy Bragg in Out of Sight (1998). He also held a recurring role as Dr. Peter Benton's brother-in-law on the medical drama ER from 1994 to 1996.

In 1998, Rhames won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for his portrayal of boxing promoter Don King in the HBO film Don King: Only in America. At the ceremony he presented the award to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon, stating that being an artist is about giving. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association later arranged for a duplicate award to be made for Rhames. Among his subsequent film appearances are a voice role as Cobra Bubbles in Disney's Lilo & Stitch (2002) and a starring role in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.