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Wesley SnipesActor
Date of Birth: 31.07.1962
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of Wesley Snipes
Early Life and EducationWesley Trent Snipes, an American actor, was born on July 31, 1962, in Florida. He grew up in a large African-American family, with his father Wesley Rudolph Snipes working as an aviation engineer in Orlando and his mother Maryann Long being a teacher's assistant. After his parents' divorce, Snipes and his three sisters moved to New York with their mother and were raised by their grandmother in the Bronx. Despite growing up in a rough neighborhood, Snipes managed to avoid getting involved in street gangs.
At the age of 12, Snipes became interested in martial arts and achieved a fifth-degree black belt in Shotokan Karate and a second-degree black belt in Aikido. He also developed a passion for dance and theater, studying choreography and winning a contest for admission to the LaGuardia School of Music and Art. However, he was unable to finish his education at LaGuardia as his mother decided to move back to Florida and work as a janitor at Disneyland.
Snipes later returned to New York and enrolled in the Percy Junior College at New York University. To support himself financially, he took on various odd jobs, including working at a telephone company and a parking lot, while also auditioning for commercials and theater roles.
Acting Career
In pursuit of acting opportunities, Snipes moved to Los Angeles and continued his education at Southeastern College, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985. He landed his first major roles in the sports film "Wildcats" (1986) and the television series "Miami Vice" (1986), playing a drug dealer. These early successes led to more acting opportunities, including a small role in Michael Jackson's music video "Bad" (1987) directed by Martin Scorsese.
Snipes gained widespread recognition for his role as Nino Brown, a gangster, in the crime thriller "New Jack City" (1991). He received critical acclaim and a nomination for "Best Villain" at the MTV Movie Awards. He went on to star in several successful films, including "White Men Can't Jump" (1992), "Demolition Man" (1993), and the "Blade" trilogy (1998-2004), where he played the titular vampire hunter. The "Blade" series became a major success, establishing Snipes as a Hollywood celebrity and earning him a Blockbuster Entertainment Award.
Personal Life and Legal Troubles
Snipes married April Dubois, with whom he had a son named Jelani Asar, in 1988. They divorced, and he later entered into a civil partnership with Korean artist Nikki Park, with whom he had a son and daughter. Snipes faced personal hardships, including narrowly escaping the 9/11 terrorist attacks that destroyed his apartment and serving a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion from 2008 to 2010.
Since his release from prison, Snipes has continued his acting career and appeared in films such as "The Expendables 3" (2014) and "Chi-Raq" (2015). In 2016, he ventured into writing, co-authoring the book "Talon of God," a supernatural thriller in the style of his iconic character Blade. He also continued to receive acting offers, starring in the thriller "Armed Response" (2017) and the horror film "The Recall" (2017).
Despite the ups and downs in his personal and professional life, Wesley Snipes remains a respected and talented actor in the industry.
