Jamie Foxx's birthday

American actor and singer Jamie Foxx was born as Eric Marlon Bishop on December 13th, 1967, in Terrell, Texas. Although his dream during his teenage years was to play professional football, it was easy to spot Jamie’s natural talent for music and comedy. He began to play the piano at the age of five, as well as sang in his church’s choir. In school, he would draw attention due to his ability to tell jokes. So despite his intentions to become a professional football player, he ended up going to United States International University to study musical and performing arts composition.

Foxx’s career in the entertainment business started in 1989, when he began to do stand-up comedy following a dare from a girlfriend. It was during this time that he took on the stage name “Jamie Foxx.” In 1991, he made his television debut in the sketch comedy series In Living Color, staying on for three years. Following his TV debut, Foxx made his first big screen appearance in 1992’s fantasy comedy feature Toys. In 1996, Jamie starred in his own sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show. While doing his show, he also guest-starred in popular contemporary shows like Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Moesha and 3rd Rock from the Sun. When his sitcom ended in 2001, Foxx shifted his attention to his growing film career, having previously done The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), Booty Call (1997), Any Given Sunday (1999), and Bait (2000).

Foxx began to gain widespread fame when he appeared alongside Will Smith in biopic Ali (2001), and co-starred with Tom Cruise in Collateral (2003), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination for Supporting Actor. In 2004, he played Ray Charles in the biographical film Ray, which cemented his status as an international star and brought him critical acclaim. For his work on the film, Foxx won the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and BAFTA for Best Actor. While his acting career took off, so did his musical one after collaborating with rappers Twista, Ludacris and Kanye West between 2003 and 2005. He also released his second studio album, Unpredictable (his first album Peep This had come out a decade earlier to poor reviews), which was a big hit, both in sales and critics, earning Jamie four Grammy Award nominations.

After the success of Ray, Foxx was seen in action movies such as Stealth (2005), Jarhead (2005), and Miami Vice (2006). He later joined the cast of musical drama Dreamgirls (2006), which further confirmed his status as a big Hollywood star. Jamie went on to star in The Kingdom (2007), The Soloist (2009), Valentine’s Day (2010), Horrible Bosses (2011), Django Unchained (2012), White House Down (2013), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Baby Driver (2017), Project Power (2020), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and Day Shift (2022). He lent his voice to the animated feature Rio (2011), and its 2014 sequel, and voiced the main character in Disney’s Soul (2020).

Aside from his acting career, Foxx released three more albums: Intuition (2008), Best Night of My Life (2010), and Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses (2015). Since 2017, he has been the host and executive producer of the musical game show Beat Shazam, and has produced numerous movies through his company Foxx Hole Productions.