Age, Biography, and Wiki
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. was born on December 28, 1954, in Mount Vernon, New York. As of 2025, he is 70 years old. He is the son of Reverend Denzel Hayes Washington Sr. and Lennis "Lynne" Washington. Denzel's early life and upbringing fostered his interest in the arts, leading him to pursue a career in acting. His extensive biography is documented on his Wikipedia page.
| Occupation | Basketball Players |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 28 December 1954 |
| Age | 70 Years |
| Birth Place | Mount Vernon, New York, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Capricorn |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Denzel Washington stands at a height of approximately 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm), and his weight typically ranges around 86 kg (190 lbs). These physical attributes have contributed to his authoritative presence on screen. However, specific weight measurements may vary over time.
| Height | 185 cm |
| Weight | 190 lbs |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
Denzel Washington has been married to Pauletta Pearson since 1983. The couple met while working on the television film Wilma and have four children together: John David, Katia, Malcolm, and Olivia. Their enduring marriage is a testament to their commitment and love.
On stage, he has acted in The Public Theater productions of Coriolanus (1979) and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990). He made his Broadway debut in the Ron Milner play Checkmates (1988). He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as a disillusioned working class father in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences (2010). He has also acted in the Broadway revivals of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2005) and Othello (2025), Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (2018).
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. His mother, Lennis "Lynne" (Lowe), was a beauty parlor owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem, New York. His father, Denzel Hayes Washington Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, was an ordained Pentecostal minister who was also an employee of the New York City Water Department, and worked at a local S. Klein department store.
Washington attended Pennington-Grimes Elementary School in Mount Vernon until 1968. When he was 14, his parents divorced and his mother sent him to the private preparatory school Oakland Military Academy in New Windsor, New York. Washington later said, "That decision changed my life, because I wouldn't have survived in the direction I was going. The guys I was hanging out with at the time, my running buddies, have now done maybe 40 years combined in the penitentiary. They were nice guys, but the streets got them." After Oakland, he attended Mainland High School in Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1970 to 1971.
In 1996, he starred alongside Whitney Houston, and Courtney B. Vance in the romantic comedy The Preacher's Wife directed by Penny Marshall. The film is a remake of the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven. In 1998, Washington starred in Spike Lee's film He Got Game. Washington played a father serving a six-year prison term when the prison warden offers him a temporary parole to convince his top-ranked high-school basketball player son (Ray Allen) to sign with the governor's alma mater, Big State. The film was Washington's third collaboration with Lee. The same year he starred in Gregory Hoblit's supernatural horror film Fallen (1998) with John Goodman, James Gandolfini, and Donald Sutherland.
In 2016, Washington starred in The Magnificent Seven, a remake of the 1960 western film of the same name, alongside Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, and Peter Sarsgaard. Principal photography began on May 18, 2015, in north Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The film premiered on September 8 at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in the United States in conventional and IMAX theaters on September 23, 2016. In The Magnificent Seven, Washington plays Sam Chisolm ("the Bounty Hunter"), a duly sworn warrant officer from Wichita, Kansas. His character was renamed from Chris Adams (played by Yul Brynner in the original film) to Sam Chisolm. It is Washington's first Western film. Washington did not watch Westerns growing up, as it was the end of the Western era in the movies. Moreover, he and his siblings were barred from going to the cinema by his father, a minister in a church. They grew up watching Biblical films instead, like King of Kings and The Ten Commandments, although he has said that he watched portions of the shows Rawhide and Bonanza. He did not view the original film in preparation, but has watched Seven Samurai. Fuqua flew to New York City to negotiate with Washington, who accepted the offer.
On June 25, 1983, Washington married Pauletta Pearson, whom he met on the set of his first screen work, the television film Wilma. They have four children: John David, also an actor and a former football player; Katia, who graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2010; and twins Olivia and Malcolm. Malcolm graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in film studies, and Olivia played a role in Lee Daniels's film The Butler. Malcolm made his directorial debut with The Piano Lesson, with Denzel producing and John David starring in it. In 1995, Washington and his wife renewed their wedding vows in South Africa with Desmond Tutu officiating.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Pauletta Pearson (m. 1983) |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Denzel Washington's net worth is estimated at $300 million. He earns a significant amount from his acting and producing endeavors, with annual earnings often reaching between $60 million to $80 million during active years. His wealth is also bolstered by real estate investments, including a mansion in Beverly Hills and properties in Century City and New York City.
Career, Business, and Investments
Denzel Washington's career began in theater, with notable performances off-Broadway. His breakthrough in television came with the role of Dr. Phillip Chandler in St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988. He transitioned to film, earning critical acclaim and numerous awards, including Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in Glory (1989) and Best Actor in Training Day (2001). Some of his highest-grossing films include The Equalizer series and American Gangster.
Outside of acting, Washington is involved in philanthropy. He has supported various charitable causes, such as the Boys & Girls Club of America and the Denzel Washington Family Foundation, which pledged $1 million to Wiley College.
Returning to Fordham that fall with a renewed purpose, Washington enrolled at the Lincoln Center campus to study acting, where he was cast in the title roles in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and Shakespeare's Othello. He then attended graduate school at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California, where he stayed for one year before returning to New York to begin a professional acting career.
Washington spent the summer of 1976 in St. Mary's City, Maryland, in summer stock theater performing Wings of the Morning, the Maryland State play, which was written for him by incorporating an African-American character/narrator based loosely on the historical figure from early colonial Maryland, Mathias de Sousa.
Shortly after graduating from Fordham, Washington made his screen acting debut in the 1977 made-for-television film Wilma which was a docudrama about sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and made his first Hollywood appearance in the 1981 film Carbon Copy. He shared a 1982 Distinguished Ensemble Performance Obie Award for playing Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Off-Broadway Negro Ensemble Company production A Soldier's Play which premiered November 20, 1981.
In 1989, Washington won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a defiant, self-possessed ex-slave soldier in the film Glory. That same year, he appeared in the film The Mighty Quinn; and in For Queen and Country, where he played the conflicted and disillusioned Reuben James, a British soldier who, despite a distinguished military career, returns to a civilian life where racism and inner-city life lead to vigilantism and violence.
Washington was reunited with Lee to play one of his most critically acclaimed roles, the title character of the historical epic Malcolm X (1992). The New York Times gave the film it's Critic's Pick with Vincent Canby declaring, "In Denzel Washington it also has a fine actor who does for "Malcolm X" what Ben Kingsley did for "Gandhi". Mr. Washington not only looks the part, but he also has the psychological heft, the intelligence and the reserve to give the film the dramatic excitement". His performance as the Black nationalist leader earned him another nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Also that year, he established the production company Mundy Lane Entertainment. The next year, he played the lawyer defending a gay man with AIDS played by Tom Hanks in the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia (1993). Sight & Sound wrote, "Casting Washington in the lead guaranteed the film the black audience that otherwise might not have had much interest in the problems of a rich white homosexual with Aids. But Aids is rampant in inner cities, where it attacks not just gay men, but IV drug users and women."
Washington has stated that he considers himself a stage actor and not a Hollywood star. He has also cited James Earl Jones as an influence saying, "he is who I wanted to be" adding "He’s my hero. My college theater career started because of [Jones]". Washington also cited Sidney Poitier as an acting inspiration saying, "He was a mentor, needless to say, an example, a friend". He has also mentioned Morgan Freeman as being an influence.
Washington has served as the national spokesman for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1993 and has appeared in public service announcements and awareness campaigns for the organization. In addition, he has served as a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1995. In 2006, for the organization's 100 anniversary, helped put together together with Daniel Paisner, a book that underscores the lesson: “If you want to change the world, start by changing the life of a child”. "A hand to guide me" features examples from leaders as they tell their life-changing stories of mentorship, when as youngsters they were guided by a caring adult, which shaped the rest of their life, including over 70 of America's leading personalities in theater, sports, business, and politics such as Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, Muhammad Ali, Yogi Berra, Toni Morrison, Cal Ripken Jr. and Colin Powell.
Social Network
While Denzel Washington is not extremely active on social media, his presence is felt through his work and public appearances. He often engages with fans and media at film premieres and award ceremonies.
After training at the American Conservatory Theater, Washington began his career in theater, acting in performances off-Broadway. He first came to prominence in the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), and in the war film A Soldier's Story (1984). Washington won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for playing an American Civil War soldier in the war drama Glory (1989) and for Best Actor for playing a corrupt police officer in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). He was Oscar-nominated for his roles in Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021).
He was interested in attending Texas Tech University: "I grew up in the Boys Club in Mount Vernon, and we were the Red Raiders. So when I was in high school, I wanted to go to Texas Tech in Lubbock just because they were called the Red Raiders and their uniforms looked like ours." Instead, he earned a BA in Drama and Journalism from Fordham University in 1977. At Fordham, he played collegiate basketball as a guard under coach P. J. Carlesimo. After a period of indecision on which major to study and taking a semester off, Washington worked as creative arts director of the overnight summer camp at Camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville, Connecticut. He participated in a staff talent show for the campers and a colleague suggested he try acting.
A major career break came when he starred as Dr. Phillip Chandler in NBC's television hospital drama St. Elsewhere, which ran from 1982 to 1988. He was one of only a few African-American actors to appear on the series for its entire six-year run. He also appeared in several television, motion picture and stage roles, such as the films A Soldier's Story (1984), Hard Lessons (1986) and Power (1986). In 1987, he starred as South African anti-apartheid political activist Stephen Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In the summer of 1990, Washington had appeared in the title role of the Public Theater's production of William Shakespeare's Richard III. Mel Gussow of The New York Times praised Washington as "an actor of range and intensity, is expert at projecting a feeling of controlled rage". Also that year Washington starred as Bleek Gilliam in the Spike Lee film Mo' Better Blues. Charles Murray of Empire praised Washington's performance as a "taut portrayal of the driven musician" and "like all Lee’s film, Mo’ Better Blues is a real ensemble piece, and the standard of the performances is uniformly excellent: but Washington [and] Lee deserve extra plaudits." In 1991, he starred as Demetrius Williams in the Mira Nair directed romantic drama Mississippi Masala opposite Sarita Choudhury. Set primarily in rural Mississippi, the film explores interracial romance between African Americans and Indian Americans. Critic Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times praised the chemistry of the two leads writing, "Washington is an actor of immense and natural charm, and he makes a good match with Sarita Choudhury".
At the 57th Golden Globe Awards in 2000, Washington won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his work in The Hurricane. He was the first black actor to win the award since Sidney Poitier in 1963. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle declared, "Washington gives a penetrating portrait of life at its most extreme. He takes the viewer into the mind of a man experiencing confinement and physical deprivation. More profoundly, he shows what it's like to deal every day with the torments of wild rage and impotence, despair and hope." In 2000, he portrayed Herman Boone, the high school football coach in the Disney sports drama film Remember the Titans which grossed over US$100 million in the U.S. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon wrote, "Washington is of course the linchpin of Remember the Titans; he's a commanding actor in a commanding role, and as memorable as he was in The Hurricane.
Washington starred in the Antoine Fuqua directed crime thriller Training Day (2001) acting opposite Ethan Hawke. He portrayed Detective Alonzo Harris, a corrupt Los Angeles cop. Roger Ebert wrote of his performance, "For Denzel Washington, [it is] a rare villainous role; he doesn't look, sound or move like his usual likable characters...he's like a monster from a horror film, unkillable and implacable." Washington won an Academy Award for Best Actor becoming the second African-American actor to win the category after Poitier, who was presented with an Honorary Academy Award the same night. He also received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.
Washington returned to Broadway playing Troy Maxson, opposite Viola Davis, in the revival of August Wilson's Fences (2010). Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Washington has the fluid naturalness we associate with good screen actors... face and stance alone provide fascinating (and damning) glimpses into Troy’s attitudes toward his son from an earlier relationships". Washington won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play on June 13, 2010. That same year, Washington starred in The Book of Eli (2010), a post-apocalyptic action-drama set in the near future. Also in 2010, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film Unstoppable, about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying dangerous cargo. The film was his fifth and final collaboration with director Tony Scott, following Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009).
In 2016, Washington directed the film Fences, co-starring Viola Davis and Stephen McKinley Henderson and based on August Wilson's play of the same name, with a script by Wilson. Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, Washington plays a former Negro league baseball player working as a garbage collector who struggles to provide for his family and come to terms with the events of his life. The film was released on December 16, 2016, by Paramount Pictures. Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote, "Washington, as both actor and director, gets the conversation humming with a speed and alacrity that keeps the audience jazzed...Washington tears through it with a joyful ferocity, like a man possessed." For his performance, Washington was nominated in the Best Actor category for a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Award. The film was nominated for three other Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won Davis her first Oscar, in the Best Supporting Actress category.
In 2020, he produced the Netflix film adaptation of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom starring Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis. The film was directed by George C. Wolfe and received positive reviews. The following year he portrayed Deputy Sheriff Joe "Deke" Deacon in the crime thriller The Little Things acting opposite Rami Malek and Jared Leto. The film was released during the COVID-19 pandemic and was released in theaters and on HBO Max. Also in 2021, Washington portrayed the titular character in the 2021 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare tragedy Macbeth. He received universal acclaim for his performance and was nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. That same year, Washington directed the drama A Journal for Jordan, based on the memoir A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor by Dana Canedy. It received a wide theatrical release on December 25, 2021 and received mixed reviews from critics.
Education
Denzel Washington attended Pennington-Grimes Elementary School and later graduated from Mount Vernon High School. He then enrolled at Fordham University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama and journalism in 1977. He further honed his acting skills at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
His educational background laid the foundation for his successful career in the performing arts.
In mid-2004, Washington visited Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) at Fort Sam Houston, where he participated in a Purple Heart ceremony, presenting medals to three Army soldiers recovering from wounds they received while stationed in Iraq. He also visited the fort's Fisher House facilities, and after learning that it had exceeded its capacity, made a substantial donation to the Fisher House Foundation; this program focuses on building and providing homes for military personnel and their families free of charge while they receive medical care. Washington's other charitable contributions include US$1million to Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund in 1995 and US$1million to Wiley College to resuscitate the college's debate team.
On May 18, 1991, Washington was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Fordham University, for having "impressively succeeded in exploring the edge of his multifaceted talent". In 2011, he donated US$2 million to Fordham for an endowed chair of the theater department, as well as US$250,000 to establish a theater-specific scholarship at the school. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Morehouse College on May 20, 2007 and an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania on May 16, 2011.
