| Mark Wahlberg | |
|---|---|
Wahlberg at the 2011 Time 100 gala |
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| Born | Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg June 5, 1971 Boston, Massachusetts, US |
| Other names | Marky Mark Monk D |
| Occupation | Actor Producer Rapper (former) |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Spouse | Rhea Durham (2009–present; 4 children) |
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971) is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1991 debut as a musician with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90's. He is well known for his roles in films such as Boogie Nights (1997), Three Kings (1999), The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), The Italian Job (2003), I Heart Huckabees (2004), Four Brothers (2005), The Departed (2006), Invincible (2006), Shooter (2007), and The Fighter (2010). He has also served as the executive producer of the TV series Entourage, Boardwalk Empire and How to Make It in America.
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Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children,[1] with siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, Tracey, Michelle, Debbie (died in 2003 at age 44), and Donnie. He is of Swedish (from his paternal grandfather), Irish, English, and French Canadian ancestry, and is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne.[2][3] His mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aide, and his father, Donald Edward Wahlberg, was a Teamster who worked as a delivery driver. His parents divorced in 1982.[4] Wahlberg had a Roman Catholic[5][6] upbringing and attended Copley Square High School (but never graduated) on Newbury Street in Boston.
Wahlberg claims to have been in trouble 20–25 times with the Boston Police Department as a youth. By the age of 13, Wahlberg had developed an addiction to cocaine and other substances.[7][8] At 15, he harassed a group of black school children on a field trip by throwing rocks and shouting racial epithets.[9]
When he was 16, Wahlberg approached a middle-aged Vietnamese man on the street and, using a large wooden stick, knocked him unconscious (while calling him "Vietnam fucking shit"). He also attacked another Vietnamese man, leaving him permanently blind in one eye, and attacked a security guard (again using racist language).[10][11]
For these crimes, Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to assault, and was sentenced to two years in jail at Boston's Deer Island House of Correction, of which he served 45 days.[10][12] In another incident, the 21-year-old Wahlberg fractured the jaw of a neighbor in an unprovoked attack.[13] Commenting in 2006 on his past crimes, Wahlberg has stated: "I did a lot of things that I regretted and I have certainly paid for my mistakes." He said the right thing to do would be to try to find the blinded man and make amends, and admitted he has not done so, but added that he was no longer burdened by guilt: "You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right, by other people as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. I feel good when I wake up in the morning."[14]
After landing in prison following this assault he decided to change his ways. According to Wahlberg, "As soon as I began that life of crime, there was always a voice in my head telling me I was going to end up in jail. Three of my brothers had done time. My sister went to prison so many times I lost count. Finally I was there, locked up with the kind of guys I'd always wanted to be like. Now I'd earned my stripes and I was just like them and I realized it wasn't what I wanted at all. I'd ended up in the worst place I could possibly imagine and I never wanted to go back. First of all I had to learn to stay on the straight and narrow." Wahlberg first relied on the guidance of his parish priest to turn his back on crime. He told his street gang that he was leaving them and had "some serious fights" with them over it. The actor commented in 2009: "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and I've done bad things. But I never blamed my upbringing for that. I never behaved like a victim so that I would have a convenient reason for victimizing others. Everything I did wrong was my own fault. I was taught the difference between right and wrong at an early age. I take full responsibility."[15]
Wahlberg first came to fame as the younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg of the successful 1980s and 1990s boy band New Kids on the Block. Mark, at age thirteen, had been one of the group's original members, along with Donnie, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, and Jonathan Knight. However, he soon quit. It was his departure that eventually allowed Joe McIntyre to take his place as the fifth member of the group.
Wahlberg began recording as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, earning a hit with "Good Vibrations" from the album Music for the People. The record was produced by brother Donnie and later hit No.1 on The Billboard Hot 100, later becoming certified as a Platinum single. The second single, "Wildside," peaked at No.5 on Billboards Hot Singles Sales chart and at No.10 on The Billboard Hot 100.[16] It was certified as a Gold Single. Marky Mark opened for the New Kids on the Block during their last tour. The second Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch LP, You Gotta Believe, was not as successful as the prior, yielding only a minor hit single in the title track. Wahlberg later collaborated with the late reggae / ragga singer Prince Ital Joe on the album Life in the Streets. The project combined rap and ragga vocals with strong eurodance music (as in the singles Happy People, German No.1 hit United, Life in the Streets, and Babylon) courtesy of Frank Peterson and Alex Christensen as producers.
He was also featured in the Black Label Society music video for "Counterfeit God", as a stand-in for the band's bassist.[17]
Wahlberg was known for his impressive physique. He first displayed it in the Good Vibrations music video and most prominently in a series of underwear ads for Calvin Klein shot by Herb Ritts, following it with Calvin Klein television advertisements.[18] Magazine and television promotions would sometimes feature Mark exclusively or accompanied by model Kate Moss. Annie Leibovitz also shot a famous session of Mark Wahlberg in underwear for Vanity Fair's annual Hall of Fame issue.[19] He also made a workout video titled The Marky Mark Workout: Form... Focus... Fitness (ISBN 1-55510-910-1).
Wahlberg dropped the "Marky Mark" moniker and began an acting career, making his debut in the 1993 TV movie The Substitute. His big screen debut came the next year, with the Danny DeVito feature Renaissance Man. A basketball fanatic, he caught the attention of critics after appearing in The Basketball Diaries in 1995, playing the role of Mickey alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, in a film adaptation of the Jim Carroll book of the same name. He also starred in the 1996 James Foley thriller Fear.
He has earned many positive reviews after successful movies like Boogie Nights as Dirk Diggler, Three Kings, The Perfect Storm, The Italian Job, and Four Brothers. His performance in I ♥ Huckabees was voted best supporting performance of the year in the 2004 Village Voice Critics Poll. Wahlberg was originally cast as Linus Caldwell in Ocean's Eleven; Matt Damon played the role instead. The two later worked together in The Departed.[20] Wahlberg was also considered for a role in the film Brokeback Mountain. It was originally intended to star him and Joaquin Phoenix, but Wahlberg was uncomfortable with the film's sex scenes and his role ultimately went to Jake Gyllenhaal.[21]
Wahlberg starred in the American football drama, Invincible, based on the true story of bartender Vince Papale. He is also the executive producer of the HBO series Entourage which is loosely based on his experiences in Hollywood. He also appeared as a foul-mouthed Massachusetts State Police detective in Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed thriller, The Departed in 2006, which netted him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture, and an NSFC Best Supporting Actor award. Wahlberg has confirmed that he was approached to star in a sequel to The Departed, but it is still early in development. The sequel would reportedly revolve around the Staff Sergeant played by Wahlberg.[22]
To prepare for his role in Shooter, Wahlberg attended long-range shooting training at Front Sight Firearms Training Institute near Pahrump, Nevada, and was able to hit a target at 1100 yards on his second day, a feat which usually takes weeks to achieve.[23] He has said in a number of interviews that he will retire at the age of 40 to concentrate on parenthood[24] and professional golf. However, in early 2007 he indicated that the latter was no longer the plan as "his golf game is horrible".[25] He played Jack Salmon, a leading role in Peter Jackson's film of The Lovely Bones.[26] In 2007 he starred opposite Joaquin Phoenix in We Own the Night, a movie about a family of police officers in New York City. The movie also starred Robert Duvall and Eva Mendes.
Wahlberg will play the drug kingpin Jon Roberts in the remake of the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys, which chronicles the story of the largest cocaine trafficker in Miami in the 1970s and 1980s, and he has persuaded Leonardo DiCaprio to play the supporting role.
He starred in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening as Eliot Moore, which premiered in movie theatres on June 13, 2008. The same year, he played the title role in Max Payne, based on a video game of the same name. While promoting Max Payne, Mark became involved in a feud with Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg and threatened to "crack that big fucking nose of his." Samberg had done an impression of Wahlberg in a Saturday Night Live skit titled "Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals."[27][28] However, Wahlberg later appeared in a follow-up skit parodying both the original skit, Samberg's impression of Wahlberg, and his own threats to Samberg.[29][30]
In the early 90s Wahlberg dated former child actress Soleil Moon Frye.[31] Wahlberg and model Rhea Durham have been together since 2001 and were married on August 1, 2009 at the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills. The couple have four children, Ella Rae (born September 2, 2003), Michael Robert (born March 21, 2006), Brendan Joseph (born September 16, 2008) and Grace Margaret (born January 11, 2010).
His father, a US Army veteran of the Korean War, died on February 14, 2008.[32]
Wahlberg is a committed Roman Catholic,[33] who attends daily Mass, credits his faith and a priest from his childhood for helping him turn his life around, and recognizes the seriousness of his faith.[6]
Actively involved in charity, Wahlberg established the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in May 2001 for the purpose of raising and distributing funds to youth service and enrichment programs.[34]
Wahlberg has four tattoos done by various artists including Paul Timman.[35] The tattoos include Sylvester the cat with Tweety Bird in his mouth on his ankle, a design of his initials "MW" with his surname "Wahlberg" on his upper right arm, and a Bob Marley tattoo with "One Love" on his upper left arm.[36] The final tattoo, which Wahlberg holds as his most meaningful, is the rosary tattooed around his neck, with a crucifix and the words "In God I Trust" resting over his heart.[36]
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Juvies | 2004 | Producer | Documentary |
| We Own the Night | 2007 | Producer | |
| Entourage | 2007–08 | Executive producer | 45 episodes |
| In Treatment | 2008 | Executive producer | 43 episodes |
| Boardwalk Empire | 2009–10 | Executive producer | Ten episodes |
| How to Make It in America | 2008–10 | Executive producer | Eight episodes |
| The Fighter | 2010 | Producer | |
| Contraband | 2012 | Producer | post-production |