A multi-tasking actor, writer, director and producer, Texan Forest Whitaker was born in 1961.

He has been in more than 50 feature films, including the popular projects Good Morning, Vietnam, Panic Room and the cult classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the film in which the then 21-year-old Whitaker first became known. He became the fourth African American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland.

The actor married actress Keisha Whitaker in 1996, whom he met on the set of Blown Away. The couple raise four children together; two of their own, a son from his previous relationship and a stepdaughter from his wife’s previous relationship.