Cuba Gooding Jr. Biography
Born: January 02, 1968
Distinguished and versatile actor Cuba Gooding Jr. spent many years in bit roles before finally becoming a star. The son of Cuba Gooding, lead singer for the '70s pop group the Main Ingredient, he was born in the Bronx on January 2, 1968, but moved to Los Angeles after his father's group had a hit single with "Everybody Plays the Fool" in 1972. Unfortunately, the elder Gooding abandoned his family two years later. The subsequently tumultuous nature of Gooding Jr.'s upbringing did not deter him from achievement: During his teens, he attended four different high schools but managed to become class president of three of them.
Gooding Jr. made his professional debut in 1984 as a breakdancer for Lionel_Richie's show at the Olympics. As an actor he was discovered by an agent while performing in a high school play, and began working steadily in television commercials, which led to a bit part on an episode of Hill_Street_Blues. The experience inspired him to take acting lessons and after attending workshops and classes, he began to get a few more parts in television and films. He made his first feature-film appearance in Coming to America (1988) in which he was credited as "Boy Getting Haircut." Gooding Jr.'s first real break came when he was cast as Tre Styles in Boyz 'N the Hood (1990). The film earned him considerable acclaim and seemed to offer the promise of a great career. Sure enough, Gooding began landing fairly substantial parts in feature films. Unfortunately, save for a few exceptions like A_Few_Good_Men (1992), most of the films were not well regarded, and the actor continued to work in relative obscurity. The comic talents he demonstrated as Paul_Hogan's sidekick in 1994's Lightning_Jack were overshadowed by further mediocre films, and it was not until 1997 that he truly came into the spotlight. That year, he starred as a loyal football player in Cameron_Crowe's Jerry_Maguire and won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his efforts.
Following this triumph, Gooding Jr. next appeared in the acclaimed As Good as It Gets alongside Jack_Nicholson, Helen_Hunt, and Greg_Kinnear. Two relatively obscure films, the suspense drama A Murder of Crows and the mockumentary Welcome to Hollywood, followed before Gooding Jr. took part in another high-profile picture, What_Dreams_May_Come. Starring opposite Robin_Williams, Gooding Jr. played the deceased Williams' tour guide to heaven. Unfortunately, the film was critically savaged and failed to do much business at the box office.
In 1999, Gooding Jr. kept busy with both television and film. In addition to starring in a series of Pepsi commercials, the actor appeared opposite Anthony_Hopkins in Instinct and had a lead role in Chill_Factor, an action extravaganza which featured him as an ice cream man trying to keep a top-secret military chemical safe with the help of a short-order cook (Skeet_Ulrich). Gooding Jr. would star opposite screen legend Robert_De_Niro in 2000's military drama Men of Honor, in which he portrayed the real life experience of Carl Brashear, the first African-American to serve as a diver in the United States Navy. Just one year later, he stepped into the role of an ill-fated serviceman in Pearl_Harbor, though he took a break from heady, big-budget war dramas in favor of comedies Rat_Race (2001) and Snow_Dogs (2002).
The year 2003 would prove another busy year for the young actor, who starred in three wildly different movies including Boat_Trip, a comedy of errors in which he played an unwitting straight man aboard an entirely gay cruise; Radio, which featured Gooding Jr. as the film's mentally challenged protagonist; and The_Fighting_Temptations, a musical comedy starring Beyoncé_Knowles. In 2004, the young actor lent his vocal chords to voice the role of Jake the Horse in Disney's Home on the Range. Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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