Cuba Gooding Jr.

Acting · 3.1 popularity

Age

Movies

Born: January 2, 1968
From: The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

Biography

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 Sr.'s 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 break-dancer 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 Singleton's 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 co-starred alongside Beyoncé Knowles. In 1996, he was cast as an arrogant football player on the brink of a career-ending injury in Cameron Crowe's 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 co-produced with his long time friend and business partner Derek Broes. The film was Gooding's first attempt at producing. Since then, he has had series of starring roles in grittier films released direct-to-DVD such as the revenge dramas Hero Wanted and Wrong Turn at Tahoe, as well as the sci-fi action pic Hardwired and the action comedy Lies & Illusions. A well-received performance as Ben Carson in Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009) and a small supporting role in Ridley Scott's 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.

Works

90 films

Pearl Harbor

20016.9

A Few Good Men

19927.6

American Gangster

20077.6

Norbit

20075.7

Jerry Maguire

19967.0

Coming to America

19886.9

Don Jon

20136.0

Boyz n the Hood

19917.6

Men of Honor

20007.5

Zoolander

20016.2

Outbreak

19956.6

Rat Race

20016.3

Home on the Range

20046.1

As Good as It Gets

19977.4

Blown Away

19946.2

What Dreams May Come

19987.2

The Butler

20137.3

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

20097.8

Radio

20037.3

Life of a King

20137.2

Life in a Year

20208.2

Red Tails

20126.7

Snow Dogs

20025.6

A Line of Fire

20255.8

Boat Trip

20025.2

Instinct

19996.5

Gladiator

19927.6

Machete Kills

20135.6

Judgment Night

19936.5

Selma

20147.4

The Devil's Tomb

20094.6

Welcome to Hollywood

20004.2

Hero Wanted

20085.3

Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace

20246.1

Dirty

20055.4

Quantum Supremacy

20264.0

Daddy Day Camp

20074.9

The Hit List

20116.0

Padilla

2026

2Everything2Terrible2: Tokyo Drift

20106.1

Hardwired

20095.1

Lightning Jack

19945.5

End Game

20065.4

The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends

20076.1

The Fighting Temptations

20035.8

Losing Isaiah

19956.5

America | A Tribute to Heroes

20016.5

Harold

20085.6

A Murder of Crows

19996.1

The Tuskegee Airmen

19957.1

Chill Factor

19994.9

Sacrifice

20114.6

The Weapon

20235.0

One in the Chamber

20125.5

Bayou Caviar

20184.6

Judgement

19923.9

Lies & Illusions

20094.0

Wrong Turn at Tahoe

20095.7

Dog Patrol: Operation Santa Paws

20255.0

In the Shadows

20015.3

A Dairy Tale

20045.1

Daybreak

19935.3

Ticking Clock

20115.2

What Love Is

20075.3

Lotus

2026

Linewatch

20085.3

Absolute Deception

20135.1

TMZ Presents: The Downfall of Diddy

20245.1

Summoned

20134.3

Shadowboxer

20055.2

Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation

2007

Trading Favors

19974.6

The Way of War

20093.6

Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story

19925.9

Skeletons in the Closet

20244.4

Sing

19895.3

Freedom

20145.5

The Enduring Significance of 'Boyz n the Hood'

20112.0

The Firing Squad

20245.8

Making Rat Race

2002

Firelight

20126.1

The Madness of Judge Jeremiah Doherty

2026

Friendly Fire: Making of an Urban Legend

20036.0

Timmy Muldoon and the Search for the Shadoweyes Bandit

20136.3

Atlas King

2026

For NYC

2020

Above the Break

2026

Giving Thanks

2026

Break the Cycle

2026

Double Victory: The Tuskegee Airmen at War

2012