The life of Jamie Foxx

Brut America

News of his hospitalization prompted an outpouring of support from his fans.  This is the story of musician, comedian, and Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx.

Transcript

00:00I will give you comedy beyond your richness.

00:02I ain't playin' my drum for real.

00:05I'm out here in Greece.

00:08Once called the entertainer of our era,

00:10Jamie Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop in 1967 in Texas.

00:15As a child, he was adopted and raised by his mother's adoptive parents.

00:19My grandmother made sure I had every opportunity

00:22to cultivate the talents that I had.

00:24Coming up by myself, I didn't have a crew.

00:26You know, my grandmother was my crew.

00:27When Foxx wasn't playing sports,

00:29he spent a lot of time in church,

00:31where he began to play the piano at five.

00:33By the time he was a teen,

00:34he was a part-time church pianist and choir leader.

00:37I had an adopted brother who was just a few years older than me,

00:41and he started playing the piano,

00:42and he would play, and everybody would sit around,

00:44and I said, ooh, I want to do that.

00:46After high school, he won a scholarship to study music and composition

00:50at United States International University.

00:52It was during this time that he began honing his comedic chops,

00:55apparent since he was just a child.

00:57My teacher, Miss Reeves, God bless her.

00:59Every Friday, she would say, listen, you keep getting in trouble.

01:02I'm going to let you do jokes every Friday for the class,

01:05so that way you don't get kicked out of school.

01:07And I would just tell jokes from the Carson Show.

01:11In 1989, Foxx performed his first open mic night at a comedy club,

01:15accepting a girlfriend's dare.

01:17When he discovered that women comedians

01:19were more often than not called to perform first,

01:21he chose a stage named Jamie,

01:23which he thought was ambiguous enough to prevent bias.

01:26Foxx was in honor of one of his comedic inspirations,

01:30Check one, two.

01:31I would do on the other side of the street,

01:33when they walk out, where's Les Snipes?

01:35One day, Denzel Washington

01:39walked out that joint, and I sprinted across.

01:41I breached security.

01:44Foxx moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment

01:47and got his big break in the sketch comedy show, In Living Color.

01:50I hope he ain't ugly, because I can't stand no ugly man.

01:54You can do what you want to do, in living color.

01:58Next, Foxx diversified his Hollywood credits,

02:01And action.

02:03making his big screen debut in 1992's Toys

02:06and releasing his first album, Keep This, in 1994.

02:10Oh baby, baby let's experiment, experiment.

02:17The jack-of-all-entertainment trade

02:18got his biggest break yet starring in his own sitcom,

02:21The Jamie Foxx Show, from 1996 to 2001.

02:25He also served as co-creator and producer

02:27for his production company, Foxx Hole Productions.

02:30You know the little monkey from Outbreak?

02:31Yeah, he bit me.

02:34Yeah, he bit me. I don't want you to catch this, girl.

02:37The stuff that was going on behind the scenes

02:39was a whole nother show.

02:41Oh, really?

02:41Yeah, because we do the show, then when they go to commercial,

02:44my boy Speedy, he's been telling jokes for 30 years.

02:46He's telling jokes, people bagging on each other,

02:48people singing, the whole nine.

02:49Foxx set his sights even higher,

02:51making waves on the big screen with films like The Players Club,

02:55Any Given Sunday, Ali, and Collateral alongside Tom Cruise.

02:59His musical breakthrough followed soon after,

03:01with appearances on slow jams with Twista in 2003

03:04and Kanye West's 2005 smash hit, Gold Digger.

03:08Oh, she's a gold digger.

03:10Way over time.

03:12That digs on me.

03:14The single went straight to No. 1 on the Billboard 100

03:18and remained there for 10 weeks.

03:20Foxx received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Ray Charles in Rain,

03:23winning the 2005 Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

03:27Foxx, who was able to work with Charles for the film,

03:30has said that he would have his eyes glued shut

03:32for 12 hours a day during filming.

03:34When I met Ray Charles,

03:36you want to talk about a boss.

03:38He said, let me tell you something, man.

03:40If you could play the blues, baby, you could do anything.

03:43All right, let's play some blues.

03:44I'm going to make it do what it do, baby, yeah.

03:47Throughout his career, Foxx has stunned fans

03:49with his impersonations of various personalities,

03:52like Dave Chappelle,

03:54I'm inside myself, I was in a fan.

03:56Denzel Washington,

03:57Hey, you get your hands off me.

04:00Al Pacino,

04:02Have a seat, I like cranberry juice.

04:05Ronald Reagan,

04:06Well, as a matter of fact, there you go again.

04:08and many more.

04:09The highest musical accolades weren't too far behind.

04:12Foxx snagged a 2010 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Doer Group

04:17for Blame It featuring T-Pain from his third studio album, Intuition.

04:21Blame it on the blues, got you feeling loose.

04:23Blame it on the drone, got you reading a song.

04:26The early 2010s brought Foxx bigger box office hits

04:29and rave reviews in films like The Soloist,

04:31The Amazing Spider-Man 2,

04:33and Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained,

04:35in which he played the title character,

04:37a bounty hunter who was formerly enslaved.

04:40So you really free?

04:41Yes, I was free.

04:48What I tell black folks that watch it

04:50if they feel a certain way, you're supposed to.

04:52If you hear the N-word or see dogs ripping apart a sleigh,

04:57you're supposed to feel everything you're supposed to feel.

05:00In 2016, Foxx became a real-life superhero

05:04when he rescued a man from a burning vehicle

05:06that had crashed in front of his home.

05:08I say you got angels around you.

05:10You have angels around you.

05:11In the years that followed,

05:12Foxx has remained a mainstay in entertainment

05:14as a game show host on Beat Shazam,

05:17the voice of the main character in Disney's Soul,

05:19and as co-creator and star of Netflix's

05:21Dad, Stop Embarrassing Me.

05:23In 2020, Foxx announced that his younger sister,

05:26D'Andra Dixon, who lived with Down syndrome, had passed.

05:29I'm the king of desperation.

05:32Oh, you sure are.

05:33I'm her big brother.

05:34It doesn't change just because she has special needs.

05:38Foxx has long served as an ambassador

05:40for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.

05:42He is father to two daughters,

05:43Corinne, with whom he's collaborated on several projects,

05:46and another daughter, Annalise.

05:49What is my biggest fear?

05:50You know what? You're actually pretty...

05:52Yeah, pretty strong.

05:53You're not really scared of much.

05:55Pretty strong.

05:56You mean on me?

05:57Yeah, that's it, exactly. You too.

06:00In April 2023, his daughter, Corinne,

06:02announced that Foxx had been hospitalized

06:04with a medical emergency.

06:06After endless speculation and conflicting reports

06:08about his condition, she announced that her father

06:10has been out of the hospital for weeks, recuperating.

06:13Foxx entered a physical rehabilitation center in May 2023.

06:18I used to think it was corny when people would say

06:20that people are looking down on you.

06:25I didn't believe it.

06:29But I got a feeling.

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