Actor. Born December 28, 1954, in Mount Vernon, New York. After graduating from Fordham University in 1977, Washington won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He left after only one year in order to seriously pursue his career. He worked with the Shakespeare in the Park ensemble and appeared in a number of off-Broadway productions and television movies before making his feature-film debut in the comedy A Carbon Copy (1981). From 1982 to 1988, he starred as Dr. Phillip Chandler in the television medical drama St Elsewhere. Washington's breakthrough role came in 1987, with an Oscar-nominated supporting turn in Cry Freedom (1987). In 1989, he took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Glory, in which he played a soldier in an all-black Massachusetts regiment during the Civil War. Washington starred in 1992's Malcolm X, directed by Spike Lee, for which he was nominated for another Academy Award, this time for Best Actor. In 1993, he co-starred with Tom Hanks in the powerful drama Philadelphia.

Other notable films include The Pelican Brief (1993), co-starring Julia Roberts; Much Ado About Nothing (1993); Crimson Tide (1995); The Preacher's Wife (1996), co-starring Whitney Houston; Courage Under Fire (1996), co-starring Meg Ryan; and He Got Game (1998), also directed by Lee. Devil in a Blue Dress, released in 1995, was the first offering from Washington's production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, named for the street on which the actor grew up.

In 1999, Washington starred as a paraplegic forensic expert tracking a serial killer in the runaway hit The Bone Collector. In The Hurricane, also released in 1999, Washington turned in a powerful performance as the boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was wrongfully convicted of triple murder in 1966 and spent close to 20 years in prison before being set free. To play Carter, Washington reportedly dropped close to 60 pounds and spent up to eight or nine hours a day in the gym, learning to throw 80 punches a minute in order to recreate the approximate force of "Hurricane's" fists. For his efforts, Washington earned a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

In 2000, Washington starred in Remember the Titans, a drama about high-school football in the racially-charged atmosphere of Virginia in the early 1970s.