Courtney B. Vance
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| Courtney B. Vance | |
|---|---|
 Vance in March 2007 |
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| Born | Courtney Bernard Vance March 12, 1960 Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Spouse(s) | Angela Bassett (m. 1997) |
| Parents | Conroy Vance (father) Leslie Vance (mother) |
Courtney Bernard Vance[1] (born March 12, 1960) is an American actor. He was a regular cast member in the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in which he played Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver. He was also a series regular on the ABC series FlashForward. He guest starred on the TNT series The Closer as Chief Tommy Delk, from 2010-2011.
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Early life [edit]
Vance was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 12, 1960, the son of Leslie, a librarian, and Conroy Vance, a grocery store manager and benefits administrator.[1] He attended Detroit Country Day School, a fee-paying university-preparatory school, and later graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree. While attending Harvard, Vance was already working as an actor at the Boston Shakespeare Company. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree later at Yale School of Drama where he met future wife and fellow student Angela Bassett.
Career [edit]
Vance has earned 2 Tony Award nominations, each in Tony Award-winning productions. He was nominated for his role in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences and for his lead role in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation. In 1987, he won a Clarence Derwent Award for his role as Cory Maxson in Fences.
Prior to joining the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Vance appeared on the original Law & Order series twice: in a minor role in the first-season episode "By Hooker, By Crook", and in a major role in the fifth season episode "Rage".
His feature film roles have won him praise. His early credits include Hamburger Hill, The Hunt for Red October, The Last Supper, Dangerous Minds, and The Adventures of Huck Finn. More recently, he appeared in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, Penny Marshall's The Preacher's Wife, and in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys. Vance also starred in Love and Action in Chicago, a romantic comedy which he also co-produced. Vance played Black Panther Bobby Seale in the Melvin and Mario Van Peebles docudrama Panther. In 2008 and 2009, he guest starred in the final season of ER, alongside his wife Angela Bassett. He was also in Hurricane Season.
Vance's television credits include such cable movies as:
- Blind Faith (opposite Charles S. Dutton), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor in 1999)
- The 1997 William Friedkin-directed 12 Angry Men (with Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott and Ossie Davis)
- The Hallmark presentation The Boys Next Door (alongside Nathan Lane, Tony Goldwyn, and Michael Jeter)
- The Tuskegee Airmen (with Laurence Fishburne and Andre Braugher)
- The television production of August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson
- The Affair, for which he received a 1996 CableACE Award nomination as Best Actor
- The Showtime presentation Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story
- Guest starred in ER as Russell Banfield, Dr. Catherine Banfield's husband.
- Voiced several ex-slave narratives in Unchained Memories, aired on HBO in February 2003.
On December 2, 2008, TV Guide reported that Vance has been cast as the Los Angeles bureau chief of the FBI in the new ABC pilot FlashForward, which is based on a Robert J. Sawyer novel, and is said to be a possible “companion show” to Lost.[2] In 2011, he starred in the American horror film Final Destination 5. Vance is set for the lead in the German-American apocalypse thriller The Divide.
He is also in a Disney Channel Original Movie titled Let It Shine, where he plays the Pastor Jacob Debarge, the main character's father. Also starring in this film is Tyler James Williams, Trevor Jackson, Coco Jones, Brandon Mychal Smith, and Dawnn Lewis. This will be the third time Vance portrays a pastor in a motion picture (first being The Preacher's Wife and the second being Joyful Noise).
Vance has also provided the voiceover for the National Football League's "You Want the NFL, Go to the NFL" television spots.[3]
He appeared as Chief Tommy Delk on the TNT series, The Closer from 2010 to 2011 (Season 6-7). Vance also played the role of Attorney Benjamin Brooks on four episodes of ABC's "Revenge." [4]
Personal life [edit]
Vance is married to Angela Bassett, whom he first met in 1980. Together, they have twins son Slater Josiah Vance and daughter Bronwyn Golden Vance, born on January 27, 2006. He and Bassett have authored a book, Friends: A Love Story. The two also participate in the annual Christmas celebration, Candlelight Processional, at Epcot.
Vance is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York City, and is an active supporter of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He is an alumnus of the Detroit Boys & Girls Club, and was recently inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame for Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Filmography [edit]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | First Affair | Male student | TV Movie |
| 1987 | Hamburger Hill | Spc. Abraham 'Doc' Johnson | |
| 1990 | The Hunt for Red October | Seaman Jones | |
| 1991 | The Emperor's New Clothes | Scribe (voice) | TV Short |
| 1992 | In the Line of Duty: Street War | Justice Butler | TV Movie |
| 1993 | The Adventures of Huck Finn | Jim | |
| 1993 | Beyond the Law | Conroy Price | |
| 1993 | Percy & Thunder | Thunder | TV Movie |
| 1994 | Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad | Thomas | TV Movie |
| 1994 | Holy Matrimony | Cooper | |
| 1995 | The Piano Lesson | Lymon | TV Movie |
| 1995 | Panther | Bobby Seale | |
| 1995 | Dangerous Minds | George Grandey | |
| 1995 | The Tuskegee Airmen | Lt. Glenn | TV Movie |
| 1995 | The Last Supper | Luke | |
| 1995 | The Affair | Travis Holloway | |
| 1996 | The Boys Next Door | Lucien P. Singer | TV Movie |
| 1996 | The Preacher's Wife | Reverend Henry Biggs | |
| 1997 | 12 Angry Men | Foreman | TV Movie |
| 1998 | Blind Faith | John Williams | |
| 1998 | Ambushed | Jerry Robinson | |
| 1998 | Naked City: Justice with a Bullet | Officer James Halloran | TV Movie |
| 1998 | Naked City: A Killer Christmas | Officer James Halloran | TV Movie |
| 1999 | Cookie's Fortune | Otis Tucker | |
| 1999 | Love and Action in Chicago | Eddie Jones | co-producer |
| 2000 | Space Cowboys | Roger Hines | |
| 2002 | Eye See You | Reverend Jones | |
| 2002 | Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story | Clarence Brandley | TV Movie |
| 2008 | Nothing But the Truth | Agent O'Hara | |
| 2009 | Hurricane Season | Mr. Randolph | |
| 2010 | Extraordinary Measures | Marcus Temple | |
| 2011 | The Divide | Delvin | |
| 2011 | Final Destination 5 | Agent Jim Block | |
| 2012 | Joyful Noise | Pastor Dale | |
| 2012 | Let It Shine | Pastor Jacob DeBarge | TV Movie |
| 2013 | Book of the Year | producer, pre-production | |
| 2014 | The Farm | The Sheriff (rumored) | pre-production |
Television [edit]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | The 41st Annual Tony Awards | Himself | Performer & Nominee: Best Featured Actor in a Play |
| 1990-1995 | Law & Order | Benjamin 'Bud' Greer / Mayor's Assistant | Episode: By Hooker, by Crook (1990), Rage (1995) |
| 1995 | The 47th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards | Himself | |
| 1995 | Picket Fences | Warren Grier | Episode: Final Judgement, Without Mercy |
| 1998 | Any Day Now | Mr. James Jackson | Episode: Unfinished Symphony |
| 1998 | The Wild Thornberrys | Makai (voice role) | Episode: Naimina Enkiyio |
| 2000 | Boston Public | Walter Harrelson | |
| 2002-2004 | The American Experience | Dr. Vivien Thomas / Narrator | Episode: Partners of the Heart, The Fight TV series/documentary |
| 2001-2006 | Law & Order: Criminal Intent | A.D.A. Ron Carver | |
| 2007 | State of Mind | William Banks | |
| 2008-2009 | ER | Russell Banfield | |
| 2009-2010 | FlashForward | Stanford Wedeck / Narrator | |
| 2010-2011 | The Closer | Chief Tommy Delk | |
| 2012 | Revenge | Benjamin Brooks | |
| 2013 | Graceland | Sam Campbell | post-production |
References [edit]
- ^ a b http://www.filmreference.com/film/70/Courtney-Vance.html
- ^ Who's on board for ABC's new sci-fi thriller?" TV Guide. December 2, 2008. Retrieved on December 3, 2008.
- ^ For N.F.L., Split Seconds Become 30-Second Spots" New York Times. August 6, 2009. Retrieved on September 15, 2011.
- ^ www.imdb.com/title/tt1837642/fullcredits#cast
External links [edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Courtney B. Vance |
- Courtney B. Vance at the Internet Movie Database
- Courtney B. Vance Interview with wife Angela Bassett on Sidewalks Entertainment
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- 1960 births
- African-American actors
- American stage actors
- American television actors
- Clarence Derwent Award winners
- Harvard University alumni
- Living people
- People from Detroit, Michigan
- People from Manhattan
- Yale School of Drama alumni
- Actors from Michigan
- 20th-century American actors
- 21st-century American actors
