Robert Townsend
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Robert Townsend (born February 6, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American film director, writer, and actor.
Townsend's career spans more than two decades. His film credits include A Soldier's Story (1984), directed by Norman Jewison and The Mighty Quinn (1989) with Denzel Washington. Townsend broke ground when he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the comedy Hollywood Shuffle in 1987. He created and produced two television variety shows -- the Cable Ace 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 (1995).
On the big screen, he has directed Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987); Halle Berry and Martin Landau in B*A*P*S (1997); James Earl Jones, Bill Cosby in The Meteor Man (1993), which Townsend also wrote and starred in. Other credits include The Five Heartbeats (1991), Love Songs (1999) (TV), starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Andre Braugher, and the Disney family film Up, Up, and Away! (2000).
At the 2001 NAACP Image Awards, Townsend had directed three actors nominated in the best actor/actress category in three different films: Leon Robinson for his role in Little Richard which Townsend directed for NBC; Alfre Woodard for her role in the Showtime Movie Holiday Heart (2000), which also garnered her a Golden Globe nomination; and Natalie Cole as herself in Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story (2000), for which she won the Image Award for best actress. Townsend has also produced the television films Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001) and 10,000 Black Men Named George (2002) a period piece about the Pullman porter strike.
Townsend is currently director of programing of the Black Family Channel
[edit] Trivia
- Robert Townsend was originally to be part of the ill-fated Saturday Night Live 1980 cast (headed by then-producer Jean Doumanian), but not long before the season went to air, Townsend, who had not yet signed his contract, was bumped in favor of Eddie Murphy.
