Glover, Danny 1948–
Danny Glover 1948–
Actor
Maintained Sense of Responsibility
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
At a Glance…
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; Opera-tion 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.
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..
Addresses: Home —San Francisco, C A; Office—do Warner Brothers, 4000 Warner Blvd. Burbank, CA 91522.
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 RogerEbert’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 Murtagh 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 Phoen ix 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.”
Sources
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, McMeei & Parker, 1987.
People Weekly Magazine Guide to Movies on Video, edited by Ralph Novak and Peter Travers, Macmillan, 1987.
Periodicals
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.
Other
Additional information for this profile was obtained from the Movie Snapshot website at www.moviesnapshot.com; and a review by Remington Dahl on www.moviereviews.com.
—Michael E. Mueller and David G. Oblender
Glover, Danny 1948—
Danny Glover 1948—
Actor
Places in the Heart Earned Film Respect
The Color Purple Stirred Controversy
Sense of Responsibility as Black Role Model
In an industry that offers limited screen opportunities for blacks, Danny Glover managed to be one of the busiest actors at work in the 1980s and into 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, including Places in the Heart, Witness, The Color Pur-pie, Lethal Weapon, and its sequel, Lethal Weapon 2. His stage career had also been quite successful and was highlighted by his acclaimed role in the 1982 a ward-winning Broadway play “Master Harold” … and the Boys; throughout, Glover 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, which have ranged from the kind-hearted farmer Mose of Places in the Heart to the villainous and abusive husband Mister in The Color Purple.
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.”
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
At a Glance…
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.
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 Al loes, all by Athol Fugard, and Suicide in B Flat, by Sam Shepard. Film credits include Escape from Alcatraz, Paramount, 1979; Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, Twentieth-Century Fox, 1981; Iceman, Universal, 1984; Birdy, Tri-Star, 1984; Places in the Heart, Tri-Star, 1984; Witness, Paramount, 1985; Silverado, Techniscope, 1985; The Color Purple, Warner Bros., 1985; Lethal Weapon, Warner Brothers, 1987; Mandela, Home Box Office (HBO), 1987; Bat 21, 1988; Dead Man Out, HBO, 1989; Lethal Weapon 2, Warner Bros., 1989; To Sleep With Anger, 1990; Predator 2, 1990; and Flight of the Intruder, 1991. Television performances include Many Mansions, PBS-TV; A Raisin in the Sun, American Playhouse, PBS-TV, 1989; and Lonesome Dove, CBS-TV, 1990. Guest appearances on television series include Hill Street Blues, NBC-TV; Lou Grant, CBS-TV; Paris, CBS-TV; and B. /. and the Bear, NBC-TV.
Awards: Theatre World Award, 1982, for performance in “Master Harold” … and the Boys; honorary D.H.L., Paine College, 1990.
Addresses: Home —San Francisco, CA.
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 black 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 heralded 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.”
Places in the Heart 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 a black 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 ninety-year-old 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, a black cowboy-hero. Glover told Belkin that feedback from the role, especially from children, reinforced for him the importance of his image as a black screen actor. ’ Tve 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.”
The Color Purple 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 black 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 black characters in stereotypical roles—in particular, Glover’s Mister, which allegedly projected a negative image of black men as violent and insensitive. Glover, who’d been criticized by some friends and relatives in the South, held, however, 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 plays a superstitious and manipulative man from the Deep South who pays a visit to old friends who have become a middle-class black 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.”
Sense of Responsibility as Black Role Model
Throughout the diverse roles of his career Glover has been aware of his responsibility as a role model for blacks. 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.”
Although Glover is a leading screen star whose talents have been praised by many critics, he is modest about his success. “I was in the right place at the right time,” he told Collier. “I was coming along at a time when the roads were available…. It’s a very simple correlation.” Glover still lives in his hometown of San Francisco in a house in the Haight-Ashbury district that he purchased years ago. He commented to Ebert in an interview: “I remember, when I was driving a cab and acting at night, I was in seventh heaven. I’m no happier today than I was in those days when I was living in a house in San Francisco and fixing it up, and I got a paycheck and spent it on sheet rock and worked with a guy putting it into the house, and went out and acted, and I was getting paid for it. How could I be happier than that?”
Sources
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.
Periodicals
Commonweal, October 6, 1989.
Ebony, March 1986.
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.
—Michael E. Mueller
Glover, Danny 1947–
Glover, Danny 1947–
PERSONAL
Full name, Danny Lebern Glover; born July 22, 1947 (some sources say 1946), in San Francisco, CA; son of James (a postal worker) and Carrie (a postal worker; maiden name, Hunley) Glover; married Asake Bomani (a jazz singer and gallery owner), 1975 (filed for divorce, May, 1999); children: Mandisa. Education: San Francisco State University, degree in economics; studied acting at Black Actors' Workshop, American Conservatory Theatre, beginning in 1975.
Addresses: Office—Carrie Productions, 2625 Alcatraz Ave., Suite 243, Berkeley, CA 94705. Agent—International Creative Management, 8942 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211. Manager—Anonymous Content, 3532 Hayden Ave., Culver City, CA 90232. Publicist—Rogers & Cowan Public Relations, 8687 Melrose Ave., 7th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
Career: Actor, producer, and director. Began acting in the late 1960's with San Francisco State University's Black Students Union; Carrie Productions, president; appeared in television commercials, including The Gap, 2002, Winsor Pilates, 2002, MCI Long Distance, 2003, and for United Nations Development Program. City of Berkeley, CA, worked as evaluator of social programs; Office of the Mayor, San Francisco, CA, researcher, 1971–75; United Nations Development Program, appointed United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, 1998; active in the Coors Foundation for Family Literacy; spokesperson for the National Association for Sickle Cell Disease.
Awards, Honors: Theatre World Award, 1981–82, for "Master Harold" … and the Boys; Image Award, outstanding lead actor in a motion picture, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1989, for Lethal Weapon; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding actor in a miniseries or special, 1988, CableACE Award, actor in a movie or miniseries, 1989, Image Award, outstanding lead actor in a drama series, miniseries, or television movie, 1990, all for Mandela; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding supporting actor in a miniseries or special, 1989, for Lonesome Dove; Independent Spirit Award, best male lead, Independent Features Project, 1991, for To Sleep With Anger; Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, inductee, 1990; Phoenix Award, Black American Cinema Society, 1990; honorary D.H.L., Paine College, 1990; Image Award nomination, outstanding lead actor in a motion picture, 1993, for Bopha!; Piper-Heidsieck Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1993; MTV Movie Award (with Mel Gibson), best on-screen duo, 1993, for Lethal Weapon 3; Humanitarian Award, Women in Film Crystal Award, 1994; Humanitarian Award, Video Software Dealers Association, 1995; Image Award nomination, outstanding actor in a telefilm or miniseries, 1995, for Queen; received star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1996; CableACE Award nominations, dramatic or theatrical special (with others; two episodes), CableACE Awards, dramatic or theatrical special (with others) and actor in a dramatic special/series, 1996, for America's Dream; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding guest actor in a drama series, 1996, for Fallen Angels; Image Award nomination, outstanding performance in an animated/live action/dramatic youth or children's series/special, 1996, for "The Frog Prince," Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child; Grammy Award nomination, spoken word, 1997, for Long Walk to Freedom; honorary D.F.A., San Francisco State University, 1997; appointed Goodwill Ambassador, United Nations Development Program, 1998; Image Award nomination, outstanding lead actor in a television movie, miniseries, or drama special, 1998, for Buffalo Soldiers; Image Award nomination, outstanding supporting actor in a motion picture, 1998, for John Grisham's "The Rainmaker"; Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination (with Mel Gibson), favorite duo—action/adventure, MTV Movie Award nomination (with Mel Gibson), best action sequence 1999, both for Lethal Weapon 4; Image Award, outstanding lead actor in a motion picture, Black Film Award nomination, Aca-pulco Black Film Festival, 1999, both for Beloved; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding supporting actor in a miniseries or a movie, 2000, Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, outstanding performance by a male actor in a television movie or miniseries, Image Award, outstanding actor in a television movie, miniseries, or dramatic special, 2001, all for Freedom Song; Phoenix Film Critics Society Award nomination (with others), best acting ensemble, 2002, for The Royal Tenenbaums; Lifetime Achievement Award, Jamerican International Film Festival, 2002; Lifetime Achievement Award, Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival, 2003; Daytime Emmy Award nomination, outstanding directing in a children's special, 2003, for Just a Dream; Image Award nomination, outstanding actor in a television movie, miniseries, or dramatic special, Black Reel Award nomination, television—best actor, 2004, both for Good Fences.
CREDITS
Film Appearances:
(Film debut) Inmate, Escape from Alcatraz, Paramount, 1979.
Morgan, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1981.
Title role, Oscar Micheaux, Film Pioneer, 1981.
Fojol and Roland, Out (also known as Deadly Drifter), Cinegate, 1982.
Birdy, TriStar, 1984.
Loomis, Iceman, Universal, 1984.
Moses, Places in the Heart, TriStar, 1984.
James McFee, Witness, Paramount, 1984.
The Stand-In, 1984.
Malachi, Silverado, Columbia, 1985.
Albert, The Color Purple, Warner Bros., 1985.
Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon, Warner Bros., 1987.
Captain Bartholomew Clark, Bat∗21, TriStar, 1988.
Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon 2, Warner Bros., 1989.
Himself, Hollywood on Horses (documentary), 1989.
(English version) Narrator, Rabbit Ears: How the Leopard Got His Spots (also known as Apple Rabbit Ears), 1989.
Harry Mention, To Sleep with Anger, Samuel Goldwyn, 1990.
Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, Predator 2, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1990.
Commander Frank "Dooke" Camparelli, Flight of the Intruder, Paramount, 1991.
Easy-Money, A Rage in Harlem, Miramax, 1991.
Raymond Campanella, Pure Luck, Universal, 1991.
Simon, Grand Canyon, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1991.
Narrator, The Talking Eggs, 1992.
Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon 3, Warner Bros., 1993.
Jerry and narrator, The Saint of Fort Washington, Warner Bros., 1993.
Micah Mangena, Bopha!, Paramount, 1993.
George Knox, Angels in the Outfield (also known as Angels), Buena Vista, 1994.
(Uncredited) Bank robber, Maverick, 1994.
Kidnapped, 1994.
Captain Sam Cahill, Operation Dumbo Drop (also known as Dumbo Drop), Buena Vista, 1995.
Narrator, Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? (documentary; also known as Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? The Life and Music of Robert Johnson), Win-Star Home Entertainment, 1997.
Gus Green, Gone Fishin', Buena Vista, 1997.
(Uncredited) Judge Tyrone Kippler, John Grisham's "The Rainmaker" (also known as The Rainmaker), Paramount, 1997.
Bob Goodall, Switchback (also known as Going West and Going West in America), Paramount, 1997.
(Uncredited) Mountain man, Wild America, Warner Bros., 1997.
Voice of Barbarus, Antz (animated; also known as Ants), DreamWorks, 1997.
Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon 4, Warner Bros., 1998.
Paul D., Beloved, Buena Vista, 1998.
Voice of Jethro, The Prince of Egypt (animated), Dream-Works Distribution, 1998.
(Scenes deleted) How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1998.
Narrator, Soldier Child (documentary), Winghead Pictures, 1998.
Host and himself, Pure Lethal (short), Warner Bros., 1998.
Narrator, The People vs. Shintech, 1999.
Wings Against the Wind, 1999.
Henry Johnson, The Monster, 1999.
Himself, The Making of "Silverado" (documentary), Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1999.
Voice of Train Conductor, Our Friend, Martin, 1999.
Boesman, Boesman and Lena (also known as Boesman & Lena), Kino International Corp., 2000.
Himself, Ennis' Gift (documentary), 2000.
Battu, 2000.
Henry Sherman, The Royal Tenenbaums, Buena Vista, 2001.
XXI Century (documentary), 2003.
Himself, A Collaboration of Spirits: Casting and Acting "The Color Purple" (documentary short), 2003.
Himself, Cultivating a Classic: The Making of "The Color Purple" (documentary short), 2003.
Detective David Tapp, Saw, Lions Gate Films, 2004.
Judge Crowley, The Cookout, Lions Gate Films, 2004.
Narrator, Picture This: A Fight to Save Joe (documentary), 2005.
Himself, The Hunters and the Hunted: The Making of "Predator 2" (documentary short), Twentieth Century-Fox Home Entertainment, 2005.
Himself, Aristide and the Endless Revolution (documentary), 2005.
Himself, The Peace! DVD (documentary), Cinema Libre Studio, 2005.
Wilhelm, Manderlay, IFC Films, 2005.
Jake, Missing in America, First Look Home Entertainment, 2005.
Himself and Wilhelm, The Cannes Experience: Manderlay 2005 (documentary short), 2005.
Narrator, In Pursuit of Happiness, 2005.
District Attorney Ken Hollister, The Shaggy Dog, Buena Vista, 2006.
Brer Turtle, The Adventures of Brer Rabbit (animated), Universal Studios, 2006.
Nujoma: Where Others Wavered, 2006.
Voice of Miles, Barnyard (animated), Paramount, 2006.
Marty Madison, Dreamgirls, DreamWorks, 2006.
Film Work:
Executive producer, To Sleep With Anger, Samuel Goldwyn, 1990.
Executive producer, The Final Act, 1998.
Financier, Woman Thou Art Loosed, Magnolia Pictures, 2004.
Television Appearances; Series:
Harley, Palmerstown, U.S.A. (also known as Palmerstown), CBS, 1980.
Voice of Professor Pollo, Captain Planet and the Planeteers (animated; also known as The New Adventures of Captain Planet), 1990.
Host, Civil War Journal, Arts and Entertainment, 1993.
Hollywood Squares, 1998.
Host, Courage, Fox Family, 2000.
Himself, Independent View, PBS, 2002.
Television Appearances; Miniseries:
Marshall Peters, Chiefs, CBS, 1983.
Joshua Deets, Lonesome Dove, CBS, 1989.
Alec Haley, Queen (also known as Alex Haley's "Queen"), CBS, 1993.
Narrator, The Untold West: The Black West, TBS, 1993.
Host, Life by the Numbers (also known as M: The Invisible Universe), PBS, 1998.
Narrator, Pandemic: Facing AIDS (documentary), HBO, 2003.
Ogion, Legend of Earthsea (also known as Earthsea), Sci-Fi Channel, 2004.
Television Appearances; Movies:
Lester, Keeping On, 1981.
Gary, The Face of Rage, ABC, 1983.
Nelson Mandela, Mandela, HBO, 1987.
Alex, Dead Man Out (also known as Dead Man Walking), HBO, 1989.
Silas, "Long Black Song," America's Dream, HBO, 1996.
Sergeant Wyatt, Buffalo Soldiers, TNT, 1997.
Will Walker, Freedom Song, TNT, 2000.
Hershey, 3 A.M., Showtime, 2001.
Tom Spader, Good Fences, Showtime, 2003.
David, The Exonerated, Court TV, 2005.
Television Appearances; Specials:
Willie Monroe, Memorial Day, 1983.
Nelson Mandela, Mandela (documentary), PBS, 1986.
Ultimate Stuntman: A Tribute to Dar Robinson, ABC, 1987.
Mr. Scott, A Place at the Table, NBC, 1988.
The R.A.C.E., NBC, 1989.
All-Star Tribute to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBC, 1989.
Walter Lee Younger, "A Raisin in the Sun," American Playhouse, PBS, 1989.
Premiere: Inside the Summer Blockbusters, Fox, 1989.
The 2nd Annual Valvoline National Driving Test, CBS, 1990.
A Party for Richard Pryor, CBS, 1991.
Mel Gibson's Unauthorized Video Diary, HBO, 1991.
Mel Gibson's Video Diary 2: "Lethal Weapon 3", HBO, 1991.
Lonesome Dove: The Making of an Epic (documentary), TNN, 1992.
The American Film Institute Salute to Sidney Poitier, NBC, 1992.
First Person with Maria Shriver, NBC, 1992.
Hollywood Hotshots, Fox, 1992.
Narrator, "The Black West," The Untold West (documentary), TBS, 1993.
Apollo Theater Hall of Fame, NBC, 1993.
Host and narrator, "How the Leopard Got His Spots," Celebrate Storytelling with Danny Glover (animated), PBS, 1994.
Movie News Hot Summer Sneak Preview, CBS, 1994.
The American Film Institute Salute to Steven Spielberg (also known as The AFI Salute to Steven Spielberg), NBC, 1995.
The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies, HBO, 1995.
Voice, Africans in America—America's Journey Through Slavery (documentary), PBS, 1998.
The Secret World of Antz (documentary), NBC, 1998.
Celebrity Profile: Danny Glover, E! Entertainment Television, 1998.
Warner Bros. 75th Anniversary: No Guts, No Glory, TNT, 1998.
Host and narrator, The Black Cowboys (documentary), History Channel, 1999.
Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize Celebrating the Humor of Richard Pryor, 1999.
Voice of Train Conductor, Our Friend, Martin, Starz!, 1999.
Host, Scared Straight! 20 Years Later (documentary), UPN, 1999.
Arista Records' 25th Anniversary Celebration, 1999.
Presenter, 25 Years of No. 1 Hits: Arista Records' Anniversary Celebration, 2000.
Narrator, "Casey at Bat," Cincinnati Pops Holiday: Fourth of July from the Heartland, PBS, 2000.
Heroes for the Planet—A Tribute to National Geographic, CNBC, Fox News, and National Geographic, 2001.
Ennis' Gift: A Film About Learning Differences, HBO, 2002.
Narrator, The Real Eve (documentary; also known as Where We Came From), Discovery Channel, 2002.
Host, What's Going On? (documentary), Showtime, 2003.
The John Garfield Story (documentary), TCM, 2003.
Mel Gibson: The E! True Hollywood Story, E! Entertainment Weekly, 2004.
The Road to Manderlay (documentary), 2005.
La Marato 2005, 2005.
Television Appearances; Awards Presentations:
Presenter, The 60th Annual Academy Awards Presentation, 1988.
The 20th NAACP Image Awards, NBC, 1988.
The 16th Annual Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, syndicated, 1989.
Presenter, The 21st Annual NAACP Image Awards, NBC, 1989.
The 22nd Annual NAACP Image Awards, NBC, 1990.
The 24th Annual Victor Awards, syndicated, 1990.
The 5th Stellar Gospel Music Awards, syndicated, 1990.
The 17th Annual People's Choice Awards, CBS, 1991.
Presenter, The 63rd Annual Academy Awards Presentation, ABC, 1991.
Host, The 26th Annual Victor Awards, TBS, 1992.
Host, The 13th Annual ACE Awards, TNT, 1992.
The 46th Annual Tony Awards, CBS, 1992.
Host, The Essence Awards, CBS, 1993.
Host, One Child, One Dream: The Horatio Alger Awards, NBC, 1993.
Jim Thorpe Pro Sports Awards, ABC, 1994.
The 36th Annual Grammy Awards, CBS, 1994.
VH1 Honors, VH1, 1994.
The Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, CBS, 1995.
The 1996 Essence Awards, Fox, 1996.
The 1999 Essence Awards, Fox, 1999.
The 2000 ESPY Awards, ESPN, 2000.
Honoree, The 2000 Essence Awards, Fox, 2000.
The 2001 Essence Awards, Fox, 2001.
The 8th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, TNT, 2002.
The 34th NAACP Image Awards, Fox, 2003.
Presenter, The 57th Annual Tony Awards, CBS, 2003.
The 2004 BET Awards, Black Entertainment Television, 2004.
Television Appearances; Pilots:
Henry Lee, The Law and Henry Lee, CBS, 2003.
Television Appearances; Episodic:
Leroy, "Slammer," Lou Grant, CBS, 1979.
Joyner, "Fire Man," The Greatest American Hero, ABC, 1981.
Jesse John Hudson, "The Second Oldest Profession," Hill Street Blues, NBC, 1981.
Jesse John Hudson, "The Last Man on East Ferry Avenue," Hill Street Blues, NBC, 1981.
Jesse John Hudson, "Hearts and Minds," Hill Street Blues, NBC, 1981.
Jesse John Hudson, "Blood Money," Hill Street Blues, NBC, 1981.
Bill, "A Man in Nell's Room," Gimme a Break!, NBC, 1981.
William, "And the Children Shall Lead," WonderWorks, PBS, 1985.
Title role, "John Henry," Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends, Showtime, 1985, 1987.
The Barbour Report, ABC, 1986.
Narrator, "The Talking Eggs," Long Ago and Far Away, PBS, 1989.
Host and narrator, "How the Leopard Got Its Spots," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1989.
Host, "Thumbelina," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1989.
(Uncredited) Roger Murtaugh, Saturday Night Live (also known as SNL), NBC, 1989.
Host, "The Three Little Pigs/The Three Billy Goats Gruff," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1989.
Host, "The Fisherman and His Wife," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1989.
Host, "Red Riding Hood/Goldilocks," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1990.
Host, "Paul Bunyan," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1990.
Host, "The Emperor's New Clothes," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1990.
Host and narrator, "Br'er Rabbit and the Wonderful Tar Baby," Storybook Classics, Showtime, 1990.
The Arsenio Hall Show, syndicated, 1991, 1992.
Narrator of "Br'er Rabbit and Boss Lion," American Heroes and Legends, Showtime, 1992.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (also known as The Best of Carson), NBC, 1992.
Howard Stern, E! Entertainment Television, 1994.
Philip Marlowe, "Red Wind," Fallen Angels, Showtime, 1995.
Voice, "The Frog Prince," Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (animated), HBO, 1995.
Inside the Actors Studio, Bravo, 1998.
The Rosie O'Donnell Show, syndicated, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002.
Mundo VIP, 1998, 2000.
"St. Louis to Timbuktu," Great Railway Journeys, PBS, 1999.
The Oprah Winfrey Show (also known as Oprah), syndicated, 2001.
The Wayne Brady Show, syndicated, 2003.
Narrator, "James Baldwin: Witness," A&E Biography (also known as Biography), Arts and Entertainment, 2003.
Tavis Smiley, PBS, 2004.
Richard & Judy, Channel 4, 2004.
Ruben & Joonas, 2005.
Caiga quien caiga, 2005.
Le vrai journal, 2005.
Charlie Pratt, Sr., "The Show Must Go On," ER, NBC, 2005.
Charlie Pratt, Sr., "Nobody's Baby," ER, NBC, 2005.
Charlie Pratt, Sr., "Wake Up," ER, NBC, 2005.
Charlie Pratt, Sr., "Dream House," ER, NBC, 2005.
Also appeared in B.J. and the Bear, NBC; Many Mansions, PBS; "AIDS in the Caribbean," What's Going On?.
Television Work; Series:
Executive producer, Courage, Fox Family, 2000.
Producer, The Henry Lee Project, CBS, 2003.
Television Executive Producer; Movies:
America's Dream, HBO, 1996.
Deadly Voyage, HBO, 1996.
Buffalo Soldiers, TNT, 1997.
Freedom Song, TNT, 2000.
3 A.M., Showtime, 2001.
Television Producer; Movies:
Good Fences, Showtime, 2003.
Television Director; Movies:
Just a Dream, Showtime, 2002.
Television Work; Specials:
Director, "Override," Directed By, Showtime, 1994.
Television Work; Pilots:
Executive producer, The Law and Henry Lee, CBS, 2003.
Stage Appearances:
(Off-Broadway debut) Zachariah, Blood Knot, Roundabout Theatre, New York City, 1980.
(Broadway debut) Willie, "Master Harold" … and the Boys, Lyceum Theatre, New York City, 1982.
Sam, "Master Harold" … and the Boys, Royale Theatre, New York City, 2003.
Lord Justice Steyn, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, 45 Bleecker, New York City, 2004.
Also appeared in The Island, Eureka Theatre, San Francisco, CA; Macbeth and Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, Actors Theatre, Los Angeles; Suicide in B Flat, Magic Theatre, San Francisco, CA; Nevis Mountain Dew, Los Angeles; Jukebox, Oakland, CA.
RECORDINGS
Videos:
(Contributor) Thomas Jefferson: A View from the Mountain (documentary), 1996.
Music Videos:
Himself, "Liberian Girl," Michael Jackson: HIStory on Film—Volume II, Sony Music, 1997.
Taped Readings:
Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, Time Warner Audio Books, 1996.
OTHER SOURCES
Books:
Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 24, Gale Group, 2000.
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, 4th ed., St. James Press, 2000.
Periodicals:
Ebony, March, 1986, p. 82.
Essence, July, 1994, p. 52.
GQ, July, 1989.
People, February 10, 1992, pp. 91-92.
Playbill, June 30, 2003, pp. 12-13.
Premiere, February, 1992, pp. 70, 73-74.
Glover, Danny
GLOVER, Danny
Nationality: American. Born: San Francisco, California, 22 July 1947. Education: San Francisco State University, degree in economics; studied acting at Black Actors' Workshop, American Conservatory Theatre, beginning in 1975. Family: Married Asake Bomani, 1975; children: Mandisa. Career: Actor. Began acting in the late 1960s with San Francisco State University's Black Students Union; evaluator of social programs, City of Berkeley, California; researcher, Office of the Mayor, San Francisco, California, 1971–75; recorded books on tape for children and adults, including Long Walk to Freedom (reading of Nelson Mandela's autobiography), Time Warner Audio Books, 1996; appeared on TV series Hollywood Squares, 1998. Awards: NAACP Image Award, for Mandela, 1988; Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor, for To Sleep with Anger, 1990; inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, 1990; Phoenix Award, Black American Cinema Society, 1990; honorary D.H.L., Paine College, 1990; Cable Ace Award, for America's Dream, 1996; star on the Walk of Fame, 1996; honorary D.F.A., San Francisco State University, 1997; appointed Goodwill Ambassador, United Nations Development Program, 1998; NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture, for Beloved, 1999. Office: Carrie Productions, 4444 West Riverside Dr., Burbank, CA 91505. Agent: William Morris Agency, 151 El Camino, Beverly Hills, CA 90212.
Films as Actor:
- 1979
Escape from Alcatraz (Siegel) (as Inmate)
- 1981
Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (Rich) (as Morgan); Oscar Micheaux, Film Pioneer (as Oscar Micheaux)
- 1982
Out (Deadly Drifter) (Hollander)
- 1983
Memorial Day (Sargent—for TV) (as Willie Monroe); "Chiefs" (London—mini, for TV) (as Marshall Peters); The Face of Rage (Wrye—for TV) (as Gary)
- 1984
Iceman (Schepisi) (as Loomis); Places in the Heart (Benton) (as Moze)
- 1985
And the Children Shall Lead (Pressman—for TV); Silverado (Kasdan) (as Mal); The Color Purple (Spielberg) (as Albert); Witness (Weir) (as McFee)
- 1987
Mandela (Saville—for TV) (as Nelson Mandela); Lethal Weapon (Donner) (as Roger Murtaugh)
- 1988
Bat*21 (Markle) (as Captain Bartholomew Clark)
- 1989
Lethal Weapon 2 (Donner) (as Roger Murtaugh); Dead Man Out (Dead Man Walking) (Pearce—for TV) (as Alex); Lonesome Dove (Wincer—mini, for TV) (as Joshua Deets); A Raisin in the Sun (Duke—for TV) (as Walter Lee)
- 1990
Flight of the Intruder (Milius) (as CDR Frank "Dooke" Camparelli); To Sleep with Anger (Burnett) (as Harry Mention) (+ exec pr); Predator 2 (Hopkins) (as Lt. Mike Harrigan)
- 1991
Grand Canyon (Kasdan) (as Simon); Pure Luck (Tass) (as Raymond Campanella); A Rage in Harlem (Duke) (as Easy Money)
- 1992
The Talking Eggs (Sporn) (as Narrator); Lethal Weapon 3 (Donner) (as Roger Murtaugh)
- 1993
Bopha! (Freeman) (as Micah Mangena); The Saint of Fort Washington (Hunter) (as Jerry); Queen (Erman—mini, for TV) (as Alec Haley)
- 1994
Maverick (Donner) (as Bank Robber [uncredited]); Angels in the Outfield (Dear) (as George Knox)
- 1995
Operation Dumbo Drop (Wincer) (as Capt. Sam Cahill)
- 1996
America's Dream (Barclay, Duke, Sullivan) (as Silas) (+ exec pr)
- 1997
Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? The Life & Music of Robert Johnson (doc) (Meyer) (as Narrator); Buffalo Soldiers (Haid—for TV) (as Sergeant Wyatt) (+ exec pr); The Rainmaker (Coppola) (as Judge Tyrone Kipler [uncredited]); Switchback (Stuart) (as Bob Goodall); Wild America (Dear) (as Mountain Man [uncredited]); Gone Fishin' (Cain) (as Gus Green)
- 1998
The Prince of Egypt (Chapman, Hickner, Wells) (as voice of Jethro); Beloved (Demme) (as Paul D); Antz (Darnell, Johnson, Guterman) (as voice of Barbatus); Lethal Weapon 4 (Donner) (as Roger Murtaugh)
- 1999
The Monster (as Henry Johnson); Our Friend, Martin (Smiley, Trippetti) (as voice of Train Conductor); Wings Against the Wind (Palcy); Scared Straight! 20 Years Later (Shapiro—for TV) (as voice of Narrator)
- 2000
Freedom Song (Robinson—for TV) (as Will Walker) (+ exec pr); Boesman and Lena (John Berry) (as Boesman)
Other Films:
- 1994
Override (for TV) (d)
- 1996
Deadly Voyage (Mackenzie—for TV) (exec pr)
Publications
By GLOVER: articles—
McGregor, A., "Red Hot Glover," interview in Time Out (London), no. 1101, 25 September 1991.
"20 Questions: Danny Glover," in Playboy (Chicago), September 1991.
On GLOVER: articles—
Ebony (Chicago), March 1986.
GQ (New York), July 1989.
"Danny Glover," in People (New York), 10 February 1992.
Premiere (Boulder), 10 February 1992.
Powell, Kevin, "Danny Glover: What a Man!" in Essence (New York), July 1994.
* * *
During the last two decades, American filmgoers have found great amusement in movies that, for humorous effect, contrast conventional black and white styles. In the Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours series, to take the best known examples, comedian Eddie Murphy runs his numbers on a succession of stolid and humorless ofay types, either middle-class cops and villains from the whitest of white suburbs or a not very classy (or clean) detective with no more wit or style than a can of pork and beans. The most memorable scenes in these films are the ones in which Murphy's ghetto moves and verbal jive help him negotiate what might be difficult, even dangerous moments. Confronted by suspicious smugglers, hassled by a bar full of racist rednecks, or confronted by an uppity hotel clerk, Murphy always slips through with verbal pyrotechnics or guile that would make Odysseus jealous.
The Lethal Weapon films offer similar enjoyments provided by the narrative excuse of a meaningless thriller plot, but with a twist. Here it is the white guy, self-destructive, impulsive Mel Gibson, who plays off the unruffled and very professional aplomb of his detective partner, a restrained Danny Glover who is constantly amazed by the zany antics of the unpredictable Gibson. It isn't just that Glover easily incarnates the conventional values of the black middle class—a strong desire for success, unwavering commitment to family, and a deeply felt respect for the ethical code of his profession. Glover also exudes a gentleness that makes him the perfect victim of such shenanigans. He never gets angry, only exasperated.
It is this gentleness that allows Glover to do well with roles that might seem more suited to Gene Wilder's brand of whimsical, unthreatening masculinity. In Angels in the Outfield, Glover plays an apparently hard-bitten baseball manager frustrated with his team's incompetent athletes; an unsuspected heavenly intervention, revealed at first to the children who are these losers' biggest fans, soon makes him a believer in undeserved benevolence, for which he becomes a passionate spokesman. Operation Dumbo Drop (a Walt Disney Vietnam film) succeeds because Glover's warmhearted officer, who is concerned for the Montagnard villagers who have lost their elephant, is able to convert career-officer Ray Liotta into an animal lover willing to jump out of an airplane to save an errant pachyderm. In The Saint of Fort Washington, he is a lovable derelict (shades of Wilder's Quakser Fortune has a Cousin Living in the Bronx) who does an affecting and melodramatic turn with, of all people, Matt Dillon.
As a supporting actor, Glover regularly turns in a competent performance: as an almost sympathetic murdering cop in Witness; as a bank robber in Maverick; as a southern judge in The Rainmaker; as a kind-hearted family man who rescues Kevin Kline in GrandCanyon; as the complex Mr. B, wife-beater and love slave, in The Color Purple; as a cowboy in Lonesome Dove; and so on. He has proven somewhat inept at both comedy (Gone Fishin') and darker featured roles (playing a serial killer he is chillingly friendly but not scarily charismatic in Switchback).
He has been most impressive, however, in roles that enable him to make a statement about race. Dispossessed and rejected, he refuses to surrender to bitterness and comes to life as a cotton farmer in order to save the farm for Sally Field in Places in the Heart. His dedicated police officer in Bopha must abandon his unthinking cooperation with the system that oppresses his own people. In the Chester Himes adaptation, A Rage in Harlem, he is effective as a city slicker, the hustler Easy Money, providing depth and dramatic contrast in a well-directed ensemble cast. The surprisingly unpopular Beloved finds him as an ex-slave victimized by a white man, a dramatic foil to Oprah Winfrey's Sethe. He is excellent as Walter Lee in a TV production of A Raisin in the Sun, though less intense and more vulnerable than Sidney Poitier's defining interpretation of the character.
Though he has worked steadily and with competence throughout his long career, Danny Glover, however, has not yet found roles that could showcase his not inconsiderable acting talent. It is ironic, and revealing of the racial dynamics of the New Hollywood, that he has had his greatest popular success playing the straight man to Mel Gibson's berserker.
—R. Barton Palmer
Glover, Danny
Glover, Danny
July 22, 1947
Born in San Francisco, the son of two postal workers who were both union organizers and members of the NAACP, actor Danny Glover attended San Francisco State University, where he majored in economics. During the 1960s he became a student activist, and he worked as an economic planner for the city after graduation. He began taking acting classes in the 1960s at the Black Actor's Workshop sponsored by the American Conservatory Theatre in Oakland. In the 1970s he acted with Sam Shepard's Magic Theater, the San Francisco Eureka Theater, and the Los Angeles Theater and made guest appearances on such television series as Lou Grant, Chiefs, and Gimme a Break.
In 1979 Glover made his New York theater debut in Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot, for which he won a Theater World Award. He also played in the 1982 Broadway production of Fugard's Master Harold …and the Boys, where he was seen by writer and director Robert Benton, who cast him as a sharecropper in the motion picture Places in the Heart (1984). Glover also appeared in Fugard's A Lesson from Aloes (1986) at the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.
In 1985 Glover appeared in three films: Witness, Silverado, and The Color Purple, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, in which he appeared as the sadistic "Mister," opposite Whoopi Goldberg. In 1987 Glover starred as a Los Angeles detective who is partners with Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. The action-adventure movie was a major commercial success and led to three sequels.
In 1990 Glover produced and starred in Charles Burnett's To Sleep with Anger, a film about middle-class black life in South-Central Los Angeles. The same year he was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and received the Phoenix Award from the Black American Cinema Society. Glover appeared in Predator 2 (1991) and The Saint of Fort Washington (1992), and in 1993, he starred as a police officer in Bopha!, a film set in South Africa and filmed in Zimbabwe, about the 1976 Soweto uprisings. In 1994 Glover starred in the popular film Angels in the Outfield, and in 1998, he won critical praise for his featured role in Beloved, Jonathan Demme's adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel. Later credits include The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and Saw (2004). Glover has been the recipient of two NAACP Image Awards, both in 1987, for his performance in Lethal Weapon (1987) and in HBO's Mandela (1987), for which he also received an ACE Award. In recent years he has attracted controversy for his political activism, speaking out against the death penalty and the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
See also Burnett, Charles; Film in the United States, Contemporary
Bibliography
"Danny Glover." In Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 24. Edited by Shirelle Phelps. Detroit: Gale, 2000.
"Danny Glover." Current Biography 53 (April 1992): 29–32.
sabrina fuchs (1996)
susan mcintosh (1996)
Updated by publisher 2005