Jamie Foxx's Biography

Jamie Foxx was born Eric Morlon Bishop on 13 December 1967 in Texas.

Foxx was brought up by his grandparents. His first interest was music. He directed his church choir and formed his own R&B band.

Jamie Foxx studied music at university in San Diego, but he got sidetracked into comedy when he did stand-up at a comedy club amateurs' night.

In his early twenties Jamie Foxx appeared in the sketch show Living Color. He also appeared in sitcoms. Although Jamie Foxx then managed to break into movies, he himself acknowledges that some of the films weren't the best. But they were a vital stepping-stone.

His early films included The Truth About Cats and Dogs, The Great White Hype, Booty Call, The Players Club, and Any Given Sunday.

Foxx landed two quality roles in Ali (2001) and Collateral (2004), in which his acclaimed performance was for many the high point of the film.

However, it was his starring role in the biopic, 'Ray', about Ray Charles, that has brought Jamie Foxx stunning accolades and plaudits including winning the Oscar for best actor.

According to Jools Holland in his Guardian review of Ray:

"I used to copy his [Ray Charles] movements and use him as a role model. Having studied the real Ray, I can say that Jamie Foxx deserved the Golden Globe he won this week: he got his movements and mannerisms exactly right. Watching Foxx, I thought I was seeing Ray Charles himself on the screen."

And still with The Guardian, anybody interested in the actor should read this fantastic interview with Jamie Foxx.

The last line of the following quote from Jamie Foxx is very revealing, coming as it does from a man who became a major film star relatively late in life. Asked by the BBC film site what it was like playing piano alongside Ray Charles, Foxx replied.

"It was very nerve-wracking before he arrived. But then when he comes in you immediately feel like the young son. When we started playing he said, "Jamie quit worrying, if you can play the blues you can do anything." So we started playing the blues, moving back and forth and then he started moving in all this other stuff that I didn't think Ray Charles even knew. I was like "How does he know all this stuff". And he's playing all of this stuff and he moves into Thelonious Monk. He said, "Now come on!" I thought "where's the music?", but he played it and I hit a wrong note and he said, "now why the hell would you do that?" What he was looking for was the explanation of why I'd played the wrong note. He said, "The notes are right underneath your fingers, all you've got to do is take your time to play the right ones." That's what life is, if you take time to do the right thing it's going to happen."

Jamie Foxx was chosen by Barbara Walters as one of the ten most fascinating people of 2005.

His album Unpredictable made No 1 on the U.S. Billboard chart in late December 2005 for five weeks. It sold more than one million copies in twenty days and was nominated for eight Billboard Music Awards.

Recent Foxx movies include Jarhead, Stealth, and Redemption.

Jamie Foxx played Ricardo Tubbs in Miami Vice, which co-stars Colin Farrell.

In 2006, Jamie Foxx starred with Beyonce in Dreamgirls, an adaptation of the Broadway musical.

In 2007, Foxx showed off his talents to great effect in his comedy and musical performance on the Unpredictable tour.

The variety of Foxx's performances is reflected in the news that SIRIUS Satellite Radio decided to launch The Foxxhole, an urban comedy, entertainment and lifestyle channel in association with Jamie Foxx.

In 2013, he starred in the title role of Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained.

In 2016, Jamie Foxx was a real-life hero when he pulled a man from his crashed truck just before it burst in flames.

In 2019, he broke up with Katie Holmes after six years together.

In 2020, his younger sister Deondra, who had Down's Syndrome, died aged 36.

In 2023, he was awarded the Vanguard Award from the Critics Choice Association in Los Angeles. He had been keeping a low profile since April 2023, fighting an undisclosed life-threatening illness.