Ving Rhames
- Born: 12 May, 1959
This physically imposing African-American character player, often with a shaved head and earring, has embodied complex and credible heavies and flawed men of authority on stage and screen. A native of NYC's Harlem, Rhames was educated at the High School of the Performing Arts and Juilliard before acting on and off-Broadway. He segued to TV with stints on the daytime soaps "The Guiding Light" and "Another World". Rhames first gained notice playing a young incarnation of writer James Baldwin's father in the autobiographical "Go Tell It On the Mountain" (PBS, 1984), delivering a vigorous performance as a young Baptist preacher attempting to escape the strictures of the 1920s South. Rhames was even more intense in Paul Schrader's "Patty Hearst" (1988) as...
FAMILY & COMPANIONS
- father Ernest Rhames:
- mother Reatha Rhames:
- brother : older; after a long separation, Rhames was reunited with his brother while acting in "The Saint of Fort Washington" (1993); Junior was living in the Fort Washington Armory, a homeless shelter in NYC where the film was being shot; subsequently entered a work program in upstate New York
- daughter Reignbeau Rhames: born in September 2000; mother, Deborah
- daughter Freedom Rhames: born in 2002; mother Deborah
- step-daughter Tiffany: mother Deborah
- wife Valerie Rhames: she filed for divorce in February 1999; divorced
- wife Deborah Reed: mother of Rhames's daughter; married in August 2002
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