| Courtney B. Vance | |
|---|---|
Vance in March 2007 |
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| Born | Courtney Bernard Vance March 12, 1960 Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Spouse | Angela Bassett (m. 1997–present) |
Courtney Bernard Vance[1] (born March 12, 1960) is an American actor. He was formerly a regular on the NBC/USA television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver. He was also a series regular on the ABC series FlashForward. As of 2011, he appears on the TNT series The Closer as Chief Tommy Delk.
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Courtney B. Vance was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Leslie, a librarian, and Conroy Vance, a grocery store manager and benefits administrator.[1] He attended Detroit Country Day School, a fee-paying university-preparatory school, and later graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree. While attending Harvard, Vance was already working as an actor at the Boston Shakespeare Company. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree later at Yale School of Drama where he met future wife and fellow student Angela Bassett.
Vance has earned two Tony Award nominations, each in Tony Award-winning productions. He was first nominated for his role in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences and later for his lead role in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation. In 1987 he won a Clarence Derwent Award for his appearance as Cory Maxson in Fences.
Prior to joining the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Vance appeared on the original Law & Order series twice: in a minor role in the first-season episode "By Hooker, By Crook", and in a major role in the fifth season episode "Rage".
Vance's feature film roles have won him steady praise. His early credits include Hamburger Hill, The Hunt for Red October, The Last Supper, Dangerous Minds, and The Adventures of Huck Finn. More recently, he appeared in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, Penny Marshall's The Preacher's Wife, and in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys. Vance also starred in the independent film Love and Action in Chicago, a romantic comedy which he also co-produced. Vance played Black Panther Bobby Seale in the Melvin and Mario Van Peebles docudrama Panther. In 2008 and 2009 he guest starred in the final season of ER alongside his wife, Angela Bassett.
Vance's television credits include such cable movies as:
On December 2, 2008, TV Guide reported that Vance has been cast as the Los Angeles bureau chief of the FBI in the new ABC pilot FlashForward, which is based on a Robert J. Sawyer novel and is said to be a possible “companion show” to Lost.[2] Vance is set for the lead in the German-American apocalypse thriller The Divide.
Vance has also provided the voiceover for the National Football League's "You Want the NFL, Go to the NFL" television spots.[3]
Vance is married to actress Angela Bassett. The couple's first children are twins, son Slater Josiah and daughter Bronwyn Golden, born on January 27, 2006. He and Bassett have authored a book, Friends: A Love Story. The two also participate in the annual Christmas celebration, Candlelight Processional, at Epcot.
Vance is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York City. Vance is an active supporter of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He is an alumnus of the Detroit Boys & Girls Club, and was recently inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame for all of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.