Robert Townsend
Robert Townsend was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States on February 6th, 1957 and is the TV Actor. At the age of 67, Robert Townsend biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Robert Townsend (born February 6, 1957) is an American actor, producer, comedian, and writer.
Townsend is best known for directing the films Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), The Meteor Man (1993), The Five Heartbeats (1991), and several other films and stand-up specials.
Robert Peterson, the eponymous self-titled character on The WB sitcom The Parent 'Hood (1995–1999), a series that he created and of which directed select episodes, is best known for his his starring role.
Townsend is also known for his role as Donald "Duck" Matthews in his 1991 film The Five Heartbeats.
He later wrote, directed, and produced Making The Five Heartbeats (2018), a documentary film about the shooting process and behind the scenes' understanding of the film.
Townsend is also known for his production company Townsend Entertainment, which has produced films such as Love, In the Hive, and others.
Townsend gained national recognition in the 1980s and early-1990s through his stand-up comedy routines and appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Townsend has worked with celebrities including Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker, Beyoncé, Denzel Washington, and many others.
Personal life
Townsend was married to Cheri Jones from September 15, 1990, to August 9, 2001. Sierra and Skye, both entertainers, and Isiah, their son, Isiah, were together on a two-day basis.
Early life and career
Townsend was born in Chicago, the second of four children to Shirley (née Jenkins) and Ed Townsend. His mother ended up raising him and his three siblings as a single parent. Growing up on the city's west side, Townsend attended Austin High School; graduating in 1975. He became interested in acting as a teenager. During a reading of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in high school, Townsend captured the attention of Chicago’s X Bag Theatre, The Experimental Black Actors Guild. Townsend later auditioned for parts at Chicago's Experimental Black Actors' Guild and performed in local plays studying at the famed Second City comedy workshop for improvisation in 1974. Townsend had a brief uncredited role in the 1975 movie Cooley High, but says the film "changed his life" for what he perceived as its true-to-life portrayal of people like him.
After high school, Townsend enrolled at Illinois State University, studied a year and later moved to New York to study at the Negro Ensemble Company. Townsend's mother believed that he should complete his college education, but he felt that college took time away from his passion for acting, and he soon dropped out of school to pursue his acting career full-time.
Career
Townsend auditioned to be part of Saturday Night Live's 1980–1981 cast, but was rejected in favor of Eddie Murphy. In 1982, Townsend appeared as one of the main characters in the PBS series Another Page, produced by Kentucky Educational Television that taught literacy to adults through serialized stories. Townsend later appeared in small parts in films like A Soldier's Story (1984), directed by Norman Jewison, and after its success garnered much more substantial parts in films like The Mighty Quinn (1989) with Denzel Washington.
In 1987, Townsend wrote, directed and produced Hollywood Shuffle, a satire based on the hardships and obstacles that black actors undergo in the film industry. The success of his first project helped him establish himself in the industry. Another of his films was The Five Heartbeats based on 1960s R&B male groups and the tribulations of the music industry. Townsend created and produced two television variety shows—the CableACE award–winning Robert Townsend and His Partners in Crime for HBO, and the Fox Television variety show Townsend Television (1993). He also created and starred in the WB Network's sitcom The Parent 'Hood which originally ran from January 1995 to July 1999. In 2018, Townsend also directed 2 episodes for the B.E.T. Series American Soul which began airing in 2019. The show is about Don Cornelius and Soul Train. Townsend was programming director at the Black Family Channel, but the network folded in 2007. Townsend created The Robert Townsend Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to introduce and help new unsigned filmmakers.