Jamie Foxx Bio

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Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, stand-up comedian, and singer. For his work in the film Ray, Foxx won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He has also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a musical/comedy and has been nominated for several Grammy Awards.

Jamie Foxx: Early life

Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop on December 13, 1967, in Terrell, Texas. He is the son of Louise Annette Talley Dixson and Darrell Bishop, a stock broker who changed his name to Shahid Abdula after converting to Islam. Foxx was abandoned seven months after birth and was raised by his mother's adoptive parents, Estelle and Mark Talley, in Terrell, Texas, a racially segregated community at the time. He had a strict Baptist upbringing. Foxx began piano lessons at the age of five by his grandmother's orders. As a teenager,he was a part-time pianist and choir leader in Terrell's New Hope Baptist Church.

Foxx attended Terrell High School, where he received top grades, played basketball and football as quarterback, and had an ambition to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He was the first player in the school's history to pass for more than 1,000 yards. He also sang in a band called Leather and Lace. After completing high school, Foxx received a scholarship to United States International University, where he studied classical music and composition. He has often cited his adoptive grandmother's influence on his life.

Jamie Foxx: Early career and In Living Color

After accepting a girlfriend's dare, Foxx told jokes and did impressions at a comedy club's open mic night in 1989. When he found that female comedians were often called first to perform, he changed his name to Jamie Foxx, feeling that it was an ambiguous enough name to disallow any biases. He chose his surname as a tribute to comedian Redd Foxx.

Foxx joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991 and subsequently had a recurring role in the comedy-drama sitcom Roc. In 1996, Foxx was given his own sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show. The following year, he made his film debut.

Jamie Foxx - Film career

Foxx made his film debut in the 1997 comedy, Booty Call. His first dramatic role came in Oliver Stone's 1999 film Any Given Sunday, where he played a heavy-partying American football player. He was cast in the role in part because of his background as a football player. Foxx has since evolved into a respected dramatic actor. Following Any Given Sunday, Foxx was featured as taxi driver Max Durocher in the film Collateral alongside Tom Cruise, for which he received outstanding reviews and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His standout performance, however, was his portrayal of Ray Charles in the biopic Ray (2004), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Foxx is the second male, and the first African American, in history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for two different movies, Collateral and Ray. The only other male actor to achieve this was Al Pacino. In 2005, Foxx was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Following this success, Foxx appeared in three more movies: Jarhead, Miami Vice, and Dreamgirls which were hits at the box office and lifted Foxx even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood. 2007 brought him the lead role in the film The Kingdom, opposite Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Ashraf Barhom.

Foxx's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

In September 2007, Foxx was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He said, upon receiving the honor, "[it was] one of the most amazing days of my life." In May of 2009 Foxx had a lead role in the film The Soloist.

Jamie Foxx - Music career

Foxx and Kanye West performing "Gold Digger"

Foxx began piano lessons at age five. In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the Fox record label) entitled Peep This. In 2001, he hosted the MTV Video Music Awards. His music career went into a higher gear when, in 2004, he was featured on rapper Twista's song, "Slow Jamz", which also featured Kanye West. The song reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, as well as number three on the UK singles chart. Foxx's second collaboration with Kanye West, "Gold Digger", in which he sang the "I Got a Woman" Ray Charles-influenced hook, went straight to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and remained there for 10 weeks. In 2005, Foxx was featured on the single "Georgia" by Atlanta rappers Ludacris and Field Mob. The song sampled Ray Charles' hit "Georgia on My Mind".

Foxx released his second studio album, Unpredictable, in December 2005. It debuted at number two, selling 598,000 copies in its first week. The following week, the album rose to number one, selling 200,000 copies. The album has sold 1.98 million copies in the United States and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. The album also charted in the UK Albums Chart, where it peaked at number nine. Foxx became the fourth artist to have won an Academy Award for acting and to have achieved a number-one record album in the US. (The other three to accomplish this feat were Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Barbra Streisand.) Foxx's first single from the album, the title track, "Unpredictable" (featuring Ludacris) samples "WildFlower" by New Birth. The song peaked inside the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and also made the UK top 20 singles chart. The second US single from the album was "DJ Play A Love Song", which reunited Foxx with Twista. In the UK, however, the second single was "Extravaganza", which saw Foxx once again collaborate with Kanye West. He was not, however, featured in the song's music video.

At the 2006 BET Awards, Foxx won two awards: Best Duet/Collaboration with Kanye West for "Gold Digger" and Video of the Year for the same video. Kanye's video tied with Mary J. Blige's (Be Without You) for Video of the year. On December 8, 2006, Foxx received 4 Grammy nominations:

• Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for Love Changes feat Mary J. Blige.
• Best R&B Album for Unpredictable.
• Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for Georgia by Ludacris & Field Mob feat Jamie Foxx.
• Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for Unpredictable feat Ludacris.

On January 22, 2007, Foxx was on Sirius Satellite Radio, announcing his new "Foxxhole" channel. This channel now features comedy and music by Jamie but also music and comedy by those Jamie respects most.

Foxx recorded a song with country superstars Rascal Flatts entitled "She Goes All The Way" for their album, Still Feels Good.

Foxx also does background vocals for artist/songwriter Tank. He and The-Dream are featured on Plies' (rapper) "Please Excuse My Hands"

Foxx remixed Ne-Yo's "Miss Independent" for his third album, Intuition, calling it "She Got Her Own". The track also features Fabolous.

Foxx collaborated with rapper The Game on the song "Around The World".

Foxx released his third album titled Intuition featuring such artists, Kanye West, T.I., Lil Wayne and T-Pain. Since the album came out he has released two singles along with two videos for them. The first for the song "Just Like Me" ft. T.I., which was directed by Brett Ratner and had an appearance by Taraji P. Henson. The second for the song "Blame It" which features T-Pain. The second video also has cameo appearances by Forest Whitaker, Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Howard, Quincy Jones, and Jake Gyllenhaal. Fox was also featured on a song with T.I called "Live in the sky"

Jamie Foxx: Personal life

Foxx has a daughter, Corinne Bishop, who was born in 1992.

Jamie Foxx - Legal issues

In April 2003, Foxx was involved in an incident with two police officers who were attempting to escort him and his sister out of Harrah's casino in New Orleans. Employees claimed they had failed to show identification upon entry. Originally charged with trespassing, disturbing the peace, battery on police officers and resisting arrest, Foxx pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace in exchange for the other charges being dropped, and was sentenced to a six month suspended jail term with two years probation and a $1500 fine.