actor
Personal Information
Born in 1948 in Georgia; raised in San Francisco, CA; married wife Asake (a jazz singer) c. 1972; children: Mandisa.
Education: Graduated from San Francisco State University, late 1960s; also studied at the American Conservatory of Theatre and with the Black Box Theatre Company.
Career
Actor, 1977-. Researcher for Mayor's Office, San Francisco, late 1960s-early 1970s. Stage credits include The Island, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, "Master Harold"...and the Boys, The Blood Knot, and A Lesson From Alloes, all by Athol Fugard, and Suicide in B Flat, by Sam Shepard. Film credits include Escape from Alcatraz, 1979; Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, 1981; Iceman, 1984; Birdy, 1984; Places in the Heart, 1984; Witness, 1985; Silverado, 1985; The Color Purple, 1985; Lethal Weapon, 1987; Bat 21, 1988; Lethal Weapon 2, 1989; To Sleep With Anger, 1990; Flight of the Intruder, 1991; A Rage in Harlem, 1991; Pure Luck, 1991; Grand Canyon, 1992; Lethal Weapon 3, 1993; The Saint of Fort Washington, 1993; Bopha!, 1993; Angels in the Outfield, 1994; Maverick, 1994; Operation Dumbo Drop, 1995; Gone Fishin', 1997; Switchback, 1997; Antz, 1998; The Prince of Egypt, 1998; Beloved, 1998; Lethal Weapon 4, 1998. Television performances include Many Mansions, PBS-TV; A Raisin in the Sun, American Playhouse, PBS-TV, 1989; and Lonesome Dove, CBS-TV, 1990.
Life's Work
In an industry that offers limited screen opportunities for African Americans, Danny Glover managed to be one of the busiest actors at work in the 1980s and the 1990s. He began on the stage in the late 1970s and within ten years had made a successful transformation to the screen, starring in some of the biggest films of the 1980s and 1990s, including Places in the Heart, Witness, The Color Purple, Lethal Weapon, and its sequels, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3, and Lethal Weapon 4. His stage career had also been quite successful and was highlighted by his acclaimed role in the 1982 award-winning Broadway play "Master Harold" ... and the Boys; Glover also has made frequent appearances on television. The talented actor has displayed great diversity in the roles he has tackled and is regularly noted for his empathetic treatment of the characters he has portrayed.
Born in rural Georgia and raised in California, Glover had early ambitions to become an economist, but was exposed to acting while a politically active student at San Francisco State University in the late 1960s. "My [acting] interest began simultaneously with my political involvement," Glover explained to Aldore Collier in Ebony. "My acting is also an extension of my involvement in community politics, working with groups like the African Liberation Support Committee, tutorial programs.... All of these things, at some point drew me into acting." While in college he obtained roles in several plays by Amiri Baraka, who had traveled to San Francisco to stage new theater productions aiming for a fresh perspective as part of the Black arts movement. "I did activist roles in many of the plays," Glover told Collier. "I felt I was making a statement in the plays."
Gained Stage Experience
In addition to his stage experience Glover studied acting formally while in college, yet did not pursue it as a career until years later. After graduation he continued his political activism by working within city government and was employed for five years as an evaluator of community programs for the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. He continued to dabble in local theater, however, and eventually decided that his calling was to be an actor, not a bureaucrat. Glover studied at the American Conservatory of Theatre and the Black Box Theatre Company, moonlighted as a taxi driver, and quickly amassed a great amount of stage experience. He appeared in South African anti-apartheid playwright Athol Fugard's The Island and Sizwe Bansi Is Dead at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco and the Los Angeles Actors Theatre, and later at New York City's Roundabout Theatre in Fugard's The Blood Knot. He also performed in Sam Shepard's Suicide in B Flat at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco and played Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Los Angeles Actors Theatre.
In 1982 Glover received recognition for his performance in Fugard's three-person "Master Harold" ... and the Boys, which premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, and eventually moved to Broadway. Glover's performance as Willie, a good-hearted waiter whose white friend turns on him and a fellow African American waiter in a vicious barrage spurred by self-hatred, won him a Theatre World Award as one of the most promising new talents of 1982. Master Harold was praised by the New York Times's Frank Rich as one of the best and most well-written plays of recent times, which, he speculated, "may even outlast the society that spawned it--the racially divided South Africa of apartheid." Rich noted that "as the easygoing Willie, Mr. Glover is a paragon of sweet kindliness--until events leave him whipped and sobbing in a chair, his low moans serving as forlorn counterpoint to the play's main confrontation."
Earned Film Respect
Glover's performance in Master Harold was seen by film director Robert Benton, who cast Glover in the role of Mose in his 1984 film, Places in the Heart. Although the role originally called for an older man, Benton was so impressed with Glover's reading for the part that he had the script rewritten. Glover portrays an African American hobo-farmer who helps to save the farm of a Southern white widow played by Sally Field; for character reference Glover drew upon the many years of his youth spent on his grandparents' farm in Georgia. He told Lisa Belkin in the New York Times that in playing Mose he continually looked to the image of his grandfather "picking cotton and trusting in God." Glover was more profoundly influenced, however, by the tragedy of his mother's death in an automobile accident days before he went to work on the film. "She was with me in so many ways," he told Charlene Krista in Films in Review, especially in the film's poignant farewell scene. "I mean, she was there when I gave the handkerchief to Sally.... I think as actors, we probably would have found ways to get what we wanted, but what happened with my mother gave us the thrust. At a time I was mourning, it gave me strength."
Places in the Heart was nominated for best picture, as was the next film Glover appeared in, 1985's Witness, a romance-thriller set amid the Amish communities of Pennsylvania. Witness provided Glover the opportunity to create a completely different type of character--a dapper ex-police officer turned murderer. Also in 1985 Glover appeared in Lawrence Kasden's acclaimed western, Silverado, playing the role of Malachi, an African American cowboy-hero. Glover told Belkin that feedback from the role, especially from children, reinforced for him the importance of his image as an African American screen actor. "I've run into black kids who flash their two fingers at me like guns and who say, 'This ought to do' or 'I don't want to kill you and you don't want to be dead,'" he remarked, citing two of his lines from the film. "They're watching me. That's a responsibility."
Mister Stirred Controversy
The following year Glover appeared in The Color Purple, which provided one of his most complex roles and certainly his most controversial. In the Steven Spielberg-directed film based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Glover plays Mister, a southern widower who marries a young woman Celie (Whoopi Goldberg). Not only does he cruelly separate Celie from her beloved sister, but he intercepts and hides her sister's letters over a number of years. Mister is an abusive husband who exploits Celie ruthlessly, openly carrying on a love affair with a sultry blues singer named Shug. The Color Purple was protested by the NAACP, which felt the film typecast African American characters in stereotypical roles--in particular, Glover's Mister, which allegedly projected a negative image of African American men as violent and insensitive. Glover, who'd been criticized by some friends and relatives in the South, held that the character accurately depicted life in the early 1900s. "I hear the criticism," he told Belkin, "... [and] prefer to remember the reaction of older black women who say, 'That's the way it was.'" Glover nonetheless understood the disapproval and explained his character in a broader context. "Mister was an adequate representation of one particular story," he told People. "He's a product of his past and his present and I think we showed that he has some capabilities for changing." Glover's empathy with the reprehensible Mister translated onto the screen in a manner that was noted by many critics. Donald Bogle in Blacks in American Films and Television wrote that Glover "gave a tightly drawn, highly charged performance of a man who's both brute and simp," while Janet Maslin of the New York Times said that Glover "somehow makes a very sympathetic villain."
In 1987 Glover teamed up with screen idol Mel Gibson for the biggest movie hit of the year, the comic-action film Lethal Weapon. In it Glover portrays Roger Murtaugh, a homicide detective and dedicated family man, whose partner is a reckless--to the point of suicidal--officer named Martin Riggs (Gibson). Glover's stable character serves as a successful counterpoint to Gibson's crazed persona; their rapport made the movie a blockbuster at both the box office and with critics. Roger Ebert in Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion 1988 Edition claimed that although Glover had important film roles in the past, his performance in Lethal Weapon "makes him a star. His job is to supply the movie's center of gravity, while all the nuts and weirdos and victims whirl around him." Two years later Glover and Gibson teamed up again for the equally successful Lethal Weapon 2. "Like its predecessor, Lethal Weapon 2 is well-written and competently acted," noted Paul Baumann in Commonweal. "It's blood-drenched fluff, but there is real chemistry between these two accomplished actors."
Glover's performance in the little-noticed 1990 Charles Burnett film, To Sleep With Anger, has been judged by some critics to be among his best. Glover played a superstitious and manipulative man from the Deep South who pays a visit to old friends who have become a middle-class African American family in Los Angeles. Slowly but surely, Harry works to stir up simmering disputes within the family, which eventually come to a head. David Ansen wrote in Newsweek that "Glover, in what may be the best role of his film career, makes [Harry] an unforgettable trickster, both frightening and a little pathetic." Terrence Rafferty in the New Yorker noted that Glover turns in "an elegantly suggestive performance."
Maintained Sense of Responsibility
Throughout the diverse roles of his career, Glover has been aware of his responsibility as a role model for African Americans. Echoing the political activism of his earlier days, Glover was quoted as saying in Jet: "I've always felt my experience as an artist is inseparable from what happens with the overall body of Black people.... My sitting here now is the result of people, Black people and people of good conscience in particular, fighting a struggle in the real world, changing the real attitudes and the real social situation." This awareness results in a special discretion regarding the roles he plays. "I have to be careful about the parts I take," he told Belkin. "Given how this industry has dealt with people like me, the parts I take have to be political choices."
Following his role in To Sleep With Anger, Glover starred as Commander Frank "Dooke" Camparelli in the 1991 action-adventure thriller Flight of the Intruder. That same year, he appeared in the films A Rage in Harlem and Pure Luck. He also earned praise for his portrayal of Simon, the diligent and moral tow-truck driver in the well-received 1992 film Grand Canyon. In 1993, Glover reprised his role as Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon 3, the third installment of the enormously popular action-adventure series. In the film, Murtagh teams with his partner Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) to track down an ex-cop turned gun smuggler. Lethal Weapon 3 earned Glover an MTV Movie Award. He also starred as Jerry, a homeless man who shows a mentally handicapped youth how to survive on the streets of New York in The Saint of Fort Washington. Also in 1993, Glover received an Image Award nomination for outstanding lead actor in a motion picture for his role as Micah Mangena in the film Bopha! Mangena is a black South African policeman who is torn between his duty to the state and the plight of his people who are suffering from the repression of apartheid. Glover received another Image Award nomination in 1993 for outstanding actor in a telefilm or miniseries for his work in Queen.
In 1994, Glover starred in the family feature film Angels in the Outfield. The film was a remake of a 1951 film and featured Glover as George Knox, the hot-tempered manager of a losing baseball team. Chris Hicks of the Deseret News remarked that the film's success at the box office was due to "the presence of Danny Glover and some razzle-dazzle special effects in its presentation of heavenly intervention....Glover is blustery in the film's first half and saintly in the second, naturally lending heft to the light material." That same year, Glover had a small role as a bank robber in Maverick, which starred Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster.
In 1995, Glover starred opposite Ray Liotta and Denis Leary in the Disney family film, Operation Dumbo Drop. The film centers around three Green Berets stationed in Vietnam who accept a mission to parachute an elephant into a remote jungle region in time for a ceremonial ritual. Reviews of the film were generally unfavorable. In his review of Operation Dumbo Drop, Zachary Woodruff of the Tucson Weekly wrote, "neither kids nor adults are likely to get too wrapped in the picture's strained Vietnam-era story, the shrill friction between Danny Glover and Ray Liotta, Denis Leary's one-note sardonic performance or anything else." However, a review of the film on the Movie Snapshot website remarked, "The "trunk and cheek" sarcasm and subtitles will be lost on younger audiences, but older kids will want to see 'Dumbo' fly."
In 1997, Glover teamed with another Lethal Weapon co-star, Joe Pesci, in the comedy Gone Fishin. Glover and Pesci play two slow-witted buddies who go on a long-awaited fishing trip to the Everglades and experience a series of mishaps during their trip. Gone Fishin' was a box-office dud and was mercilessly panned by critics. Clarissa Cruz of The Providence Phoenix wrote, "Gone Fishin' is one of the most mindlessly banal so-called comedies ever made. The movie tries to recreate the hackneyed buddy film formula, ala Cheech and Chong, but ends up more like a painfully interminable episode of Three's Company. " Remington Dahl, in a review of the film on www.movie-reviews.com remarked, "Gone Fishin' places its every hope on the possibility that Glover and Pesci can rekindle their endearing Lethal Weapon chemistry. It never happens."
Glover also landed a role in the 1997 suspense thriller Switchback, which tells the story of the hunt for a serial killer in Texas. In the film, Glover plays Bob Goodall, a mysterious stranger who drives a Cadillac with an interior decorated with photos of nude women. Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune reacted favorably to Glover's development of Goodall, "The director gets a big assist from his cast, particularly Glover, who digs into his ambiguous character with the same kind of gusto he brought to Charles Burnett's To Sleep With Anger. " Caro also praised the film, calling Switchback, "well made, well acted and occasionally subtle." However, Frank Gabrenya of the Columbus Dispatch was less enthused with Glover's performance, "Glover recycles his suspicious house guest from To Sleep With Anger, complete with slippery charm and earthy laugh. The old pro is fun to watch, but his effort is wasted on a character who makes no sense outside the world of thriller stereotypes."
In 1998 Glover served as the voice of Barbatus, a grizzled soldier ant, in the highly acclaimed animated film Antz. He also provided the voice of Jethro in another animated film, The Prince of Egypt. Glover also starred opposite Oprah Winfrey in the film Beloved, which was based on a novel by Toni Morrison. Five years after the third Lethal Weapon was released, Glover and Mel Gibson were paired for yet another sequel, Lethal Weapon 4. Initial reaction to the idea was dubious. Critics doubted that the storyline could be freshened up, and pointed to the actors' advancing age as an unbelievable element in the plot. An Entertainment Weekly writer remarked, "[Gibson and Glover are] still very attractive men, to be sure, but it's distracting to worry about their coronary health while they're being battered and shot at in the course of a day's work. Shouldn't they just cash out and discuss pension plans?" Audiences did not agree with this assessment, as Lethal Weapon 4 surpassed the opening-weekend revenues of the previous three Lethal Weapon sequels, reaping $34 million upon release. Glover capped a tremendously successful 1998 by being inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. He was also appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program.
Glover is pragmatic about his career, recognizing that an actor is only as good as his last work and that the next good part may be a long time coming. As he told Kevin Powell in Essence, "I want to feel that I made choices that empowered me and substantiated me as a human being. My career is going to be here and gone. But I'm always going to be a human being. And I want to look myself in the mirror and say that I was the human being I wanted to be."
Awards
Theatre World Award, 1982, for performance in "Master Harold"...and the Boys; honorary doctorate, Paine College, 1990; MTV Movie Award for Lethal Weapon 3, 1993; Image Award nomination for Bopha!, 1993; inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, 1998.
Further Reading
Books
- Bogle, Donald, Blacks in American Films and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Simon & Schuster, 1988.
- Ebert, Roger, Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion 1988 Edition, Andrews, McMeel & Parker, 1987.
- People Weekly Magazine Guide to Movies on Video, edited by Ralph Novak and Peter Travers, Macmillan, 1987.
- Chicago Tribune, October 31, 1997.
- Columbus Dispatch, October 31, 1997.
- Commonweal, October 6, 1989.
- Deseret News, July 15, 1994.
- Ebony, March 1986.
- Entertainment Weekly, July 17, 1998; July 24, 1998.
- Essence, July 1994.
- Films in Review, April 1985.
- Gentleman's Quarterly, July 1989.
- Jet, March 17, 1986; April 6, 1987; October 31, 1988; September 18, 1989; March 5, 1990.
- Maclean's, November 19, 1990.
- Newsweek, October 22, 1990.
- New Yorker, November 5, 1990.
- New York Times, May 5, 1982; May 6, 1982; May 16, 1982; December 18, 1985; January 26, 1986.
- People, March 10, 1986.
- The Providence Phoenix, June 5-12, 1997.
- Tucson Weekly, August 17, 1995.
- Additional information for this profile was obtained from the Movie Snapshot website at www.moviesnapshot.com; and a review by Remington Dahl on www.movie-reviews.com.
— Michael E. Mueller and David G. Oblender
