Danny Glover

Season 4, Episode 405

Original Airdate: August 23, 1998

Danny Glover was raised in San Francisco. Both his parents were postal employees, and active members of the NAACP. They instilled a strong belief in social responsibility in their five children, including their eldest, Danny. He is very active in community service causes to this day. In 1998, Glover was even appointed as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Program.

At 6'3“, Glover was perfect for the high school football team, but recurring epileptic seizures prevented him from pursuing football beyond high school. Glover enrolled at San Francisco State University in 1965. Glover was an economics major - but like many students in the 60s became involved in social and political groups. He was a member of the Black Student Union, and became affiliated with the Black Panthers, and even lived on a commune for a few months. He also spent many hours tutoring inner-city children and ran three reading centers.

During his time at San Francisco State he met his future wife Asake Bormani. With a young family to support, he worked for the city of San Francisco over the next several years. It wasn't until 1975 (at the age of 28) that he began to develop an interest in acting.

His experience being limited to a few political plays in college, Glover took classes with the Black Actors Workshop at the American Conservatory Theater. Soon, he was landing roles in local theater, and eventually moved the family to Los Angeles to pursue acting opportunities full-time.

His first film role was a small part in the Clint Eastwood film, Escape from Alcatraz (1979). Over the next several years, he amassed an impressive stage resume, including performances in Sam Shepard's Suicide in B Flat, Shakespeare's Macbeth, and Athol Fugard's The Island. Glover developed a special relationship with Fugard, the reclusive South African playwright. Glover played the lead in the 1980 off-Broadway revival of the playwright's Blood Knot. During the run of the show, he got a call from his agent with to take a role in the pilot for Hill Street Blues. Realizing that the play would be forced to close if he accepted since he had no understudy, Glover turned down the pilot. (He did have a small recurring role during Hill Street's second season).

Fugard caught a performance and came away so impressed with Glover that he personally offered him the lead role in Master Harold and the Boys, the first of his plays to have its world premiere on Broadway. Critical accolades poured in, and got Glover noticed by director Robert Benton, who cast him opposite Sally Field in the drama Places in the Heart (1984). The movie was a success, and Glover thereafter landed parts in Witness (1985), as a crooked cop, Silverado (1985), as a cowboy, and The Color Purple (1985), as the cruel Mister.

Two years later, he and Mel Gibson teamed up for the first time in the blockbuster hit Lethal Weapon. The movie has since spawned three sequels, and a friendship between its stars. Over the next decade, Glover kept working between the Lethal Weapon sequels, better-left-forgotten film comedies, and worthy television projects, including a starring role in the acclaimed CBS miniseries Lonesome Dove. He also began producing projects in 1991 with the film To Sleep With Anger, in which he also starred. He also appeared in Grand Canyon (1991), alongside Kevin Kline, Mary McDonnell, Steve Martin and Alfre Woodard.

Glover made a cameo appearance in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker (1997). The next year, he reunited with his Color Purple co-star Oprah Winfrey in Jonathan Demme's adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved. He also voiced animated characters for the first time, including a hilarious cameo in Antz (1998) and Moses' sage father-in-law, Jethro, in The Prince of Egypt (1998). His most recent film is The Royal Tenenbaums co-starring Angelica Huston, Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Stiller.

He and his family still live in his hometown of San Francisco.