I’ve been wanting to start a new content offering here on INFOtainment News for a long time and tonight I’m officially launching the INFOtainment News Personality Profile !!
This is a very exciting segment of our offering here as it will be focused on those, in various walks of life, not necessarily celebrity, but those that are making a positive change and impact in the world today.
The INFOtainment News Personality Profile will be a weekly addition to this site. The goal is to bring more visibility and effective discussion around the community works those profiled are doing.
For the inaugural Personality Profile I have chosen: Jamie Foxx
Eric Morlon Bishop, Jr. (born December 13, 1967 in Terrell, Texas), better known by his stage name Jamie Foxx, is an Academy Award winning actor, Grammy Award nominated multi-platinum selling R&B singer, and critically acclaimed comedian. As a singer he has three multi-platnium releases; 1994’s Peep This, 2005’s Unpredictable and 2008’s Intuition. Foxx received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on September 14, 2007. He is perhaps best known for playing Ray Charles in the movie Ray and being featured on Kanye West’s hit single Gold Digger.
One of the most popular African-American comedians of the late 1990s, TV star turned screen actor Jamie Foxx first became known for his many roles on Keenen Ivory Wayans’ long-running comedy variety show In Living Color. Since then, Foxx has played both raucous and sensitive nice-guy roles in a number of films, and earned particular acclaim for his portrayal of a talented but egotistical quarterback in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday.
Born Eric Bishop in the small town of Terrell, Texas, on December 13, 1967, Foxx was raised by his grandparents after his parents separated. He enjoyed a happy upbringing, going to church every day with his grandparents and excelling at everything from academics to music to football. During his teen years he had his first taste of the entertainment business as his church’s choir director and music director, and also started his own R&B band. Foxx studied music while a student at the U.S. International University in San Diego; it was during his college days that he got his start as a stand-up comedian. Attending a comedy club one night with some friends, he was encouraged to take the stage and perform some impersonations, which proved incredibly popular with the audience. Foxx’s enthusiastic reception led to his decision to move to L.A. and pursue a comedy career. At the age of 22 he was hired for In Living Color, and he subsequently landed a recurring role on Charles Dutton’s sitcom Roc.
Foxx was ultimately given his own show in 1996; that same year, he appeared in a supporting role in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, which cast him as a friend of Ben Chaplin. He was also featured in the boxing satire The Great White Hype, and the following year he got star billing opposite fellow comedian Tommy Davidson in the poorly received comedy Booty Call. After playing a DJ in Ice Cube’s The Players Club (1998), Foxx earned some of his best reviews to date for his role in Any Given Sunday (1999). He subsequently returned to straight comedy, starring in Antoine Fuqua’s crime comedy Bait as an ex-con trying to mend his ways, and as a man caught in a convenience stored robbery in Held Up.
In 2001, Foxx stepped back on the big screen as Drew Bundi Brown in Michael Mann’s biopic Ali. Then, after a role in the barely seen 2003 Sylvester Stallone drama Shade, Foxx embarked on his busiest year yet. 2004 saw him star in no fewer than four films, the most noteworthy of them being the thriller Collateral. The tense summer flick not only saw Foxx again under the direction of Mann, but cast on an equal level with Hollywood star Tom Cruise. His turn as a hapless cab driver who is forced into a menacing partnership slowly advancing Foxx’s dramatic screen presence, the role served as proof to many that his talents extended well beyond what many may have suspected. When it was announced shortly thereafter that Foxx would be portraying the legendary blues pianist Ray Charles in Director Taylor Hackford’s eagerly anticipated biopic Ray, it was only a matter of time before audiences found out how deep Foxx’s talents as an actor truly ran. So effective was Foxx in recreating Charles’ unique style and unmistakable visage that many critics speculated an Oscar nomination may be in calling for the one-time funnyman turned dramatic powerhouse. When the star-studded evening in February did finally arrive and the envelope that would reveal the best actor of 2005 was breathlessly opened, Foxx did indeed take the prize — raising already stratospheric expectations regarding his future career to a fever pitch.
Foxx subverted expectations by capitalizing on his Oscar win with an R&B album that garnered respectable reviews and solid sales. He returned to films in a supporting role in Stealth and appeared as a leader of men in Sam Mendes’ Gulf War film Jarhead. In 2006 he reteamed with Michael Mann, starring as Tubbs in the big-screen adaptation of Miami Vice. Late in the year, he starred in the much-anticipated adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, opposite fellow actor-musicians hyphenates Eddie Murphy and Beyoncé Knowles.
The Kingdom in 2007, The Soloist in 2009 were also decent appearances for Foxx as he continued to hone his acting and big screen presence.
Where we really see Foxx step back into that suspenseful dramatic acting role is in the 2009 flick, Law Abiding Citizen where he plays a prosecutor caught between a man (Gerard Butler) on a mission to avenge his family’s murder.
Coming this year Valentine’s Day and Due Date are expected to be high quality productions as well
Outside of the phenomenal movie and music careers Foxx is the executive producer of one of the most popular channels on satellite radio (The Foxxhole – Sirius 106 XM 149), he has surrounded himself with a handful of the brightest stars in comedy (Sheryl Underwood, Zo Williams (known as the “Hip Hop Dr. Phil”), Corey Holcomb, Mark Curry, Claudia Jordan, Johnny Mack, Speedy, Lewis Dix, TDP, and The Poetess Felicia Morris, to name a few).
I mention all those people on The Foxxhole for one reason, if you satellite radio you NEED to be tuning into this station.
I chose Jamie Foxx for the first Personality Profile for a few reasons
- I listen to him and his crew on The Foxxhole everyday and they really do make a great effort to use the medium they have, satellite radio and celebrity status, to get positive messages across to everyone willing to listen with an open mind
- I could have gone the easy route and chose President Obama, but that would have been too easy, and I’m not looking for the easy way out – I want people to think and comment on how each of these Personality Profiles has impacted their lives and adjusted their thinking
- I also picked Jamie Foxx because in one episode of The Foxxhole he made clear mention that he has a serious dislike for bloggers and many things on the internet. He doesn’t give any energy to reading and listening to all the negative messages out there by, what I’m going to call, the “shock bloggers” – I won’t mention any names, but I feel precisely the same way. So with that, I wanted to show Mr. Foxx that some of us are cool and aren’t in this online content delivery game to spew garbage. We here at INFOtainment News are focused on positive, relevant news that does nothing short of assisting the world be a better place…one post at a time.
J. Foxx – holla at ya boy ! Follow Jamie on Twitter @iamjamiefoxx
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