Cuba Mark Gooding Jr born January 2 1968 is an American actor He is the recipient of an Academy Award a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy nomination He was born in Bronx New York to Shirley a singer with the Sweethearts and Cuba Gooding Sr a lead vocalist of soul group The Main Ingredient He has two brothers musician Tommy Gooding and fellow actor Omar Gooding and sister April Gooding His family moved to Los Angeles after Gooding Srs music group had a hit single with Everybody Plays the Fool in 1972 but abandoned his family two years later Gooding Jr was raised by his mother and attended four different high schools North Hollywood High School Tustin High School Apple Valley High School and John F Kennedy High School in Granada Hills in Los Angeles He served as class president in three of them His first job as a professional entertainer was as a breakdancer performing with singer Lionel Richie at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles After high school Gooding studied Japanese martial arts for three years before turning his focus toward acting Early on he landed guest starring roles on shows like Hill Street Blues 1981 and MacGyver 1985 His first major role was in the John Singletons box office surprise and critical hit Boyz n the Hood 1991 He followed this success with roles in major films like A Few Good Men 1992 Lightning Jack 1994 Outbreak 1995 Men of Honor 2000 Rat Race 2001 and The Fighting Temptations 2003 in which he costarred alongside Beyoncé Knowles In 1996 he was cast as an arrogant football player on the brink of a careerending injury in Cameron Crowes Jerry Maguire 1996 The film was a success and earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor His Show Me The Money line in the film became a nationwide catchphrase In 1997 he had a notable supporting role in As Good As It Gets 1997 The next several years his films were inconsistently successful Boat Trip 2002 Norbit 2007 and Daddy Day Camp 2007 all of which had received extremely negative reviews and performed poorly at the box office Gooding also starred in a film titled A Murder of Crows which he coproduced with his long time friend and business partner Derek Broes The film was Goodings first attempt at producing Since then he has had series of starring roles in grittier films released directtoDVD such as the revenge dramas Hero Wanted and Wrong Turn at Tahoe as well as the scifi action pic Hardwired and the action comedy Lies Illusions A wellreceived performance as Ben Carson in Gifted Hands The Ben Carson Story 2009 and a small supporting role in Ridley Scotts American Gangster 2007 both proved to be exceptions to this trend An appearance in the World War II film Red Tails produced by George Lucas and with other prominent actors such as Terrence Howard will mark his only return to the big screen since American Gangster
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