Category: Birthday Bios

Bios about people of color in genre media and projects.

Birthday Bios

Happy Birthday to Kene Holliday!

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Well-known character actor Kene Holliday was born on June 25, 1949, in Long Island, New York.

Holliday is best known for his role as private investigator Tyler Hudson on Andy Griffith’s hit ’80s show “Matlock,” but also had genre-based roles on screen in “G.I. Joe: The Movie,” “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero” and TV’s “The Incredible Hulk,” as well as voicing the role of Roadblock in the G.I. Joe cartoon.

Holliday also appeared in well-known and well-loved shows “The Jeffersons,” “Kojak,” “What’s Happening,” “Benson,” “Hart to Hart,” “Roots: The Next Generations,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Soap,” and Holliday’s first sit-com “Carter Country” (a show about a small-town, Southern police station that, personally, I found hilarious at eight years old).

Holliday’s most recent career success was being nominated for a 2008 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance and a 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Supporting Male for his role as a member of a record producing team in award-winning director Craig Zobel’s comedy, “Great World of Sound.” And in 2009, he started theater company Moto Theatre Works in Long Island.

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Birthday Bios

Happy Birthday to Michaela Conlin!

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Happy birthday to Michaela Conlin, born on June 9, 1978, to a Chinese mother and Irish-American father in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Best known for her role as Angela Montenegro on Fox’s crime drama “Bones,” Conlin was originally trained for the theater.
After appearing on stage throughout her childhood, Conlin attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. While in New York, she was chosen to appear on the cable TV documentary series “The It Factor,” which focused on the lives of young actors.
Soon after “The It Factor,” Conlin moved to Los Angeles and appeared in a role as an idealistic intern on the show “MDs,” and then as an attorney in ABC’s “The D.A.”
Also performing in films, Conlin played in (another) attorney role in “The Lincoln Lawyer,” opposite Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, and Bryan Cranston. Her role as May in fantasy movie “Enchanted,” with Amy Adams, was ultimately “trimmed,” for the theater, but appears in the DVD bonus features.
In 2008, Conlin was nominated for an Asian Excellence Award in the category of Supporting Television actress, for her role on “Bones.”

Birthday Bios

Morgan Freeman turned 77, June 1.

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Morgan Freeman turns 77!

Picture it. It’s 1975, and you’re sitting in front of your black & white TV with the rabbit ears, the channel (manually) switched to PBS. You’re watching The Electric Company, and Morgan Freeman is dressed as a vampire and singing as you sit there glued to your seat. Except you don’t know it’s Morgan Freeman, and the last thing you’re thinking is that you’re going to be seeing a lot of this guy as the years pass.

Morgan Freeman, born on June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee, was moved around a lot as a child, living in Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and Chicago. As a young man he turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University to join the Air Force where he served as an Airman 1st Class.

And though many of us first became acquainted with him as a cast member on a children’s show, he went on to become a multi-award-winning actor, director (1993’s Bopha!), and narrator (that voice!). There are simply too many movies and TV shows to list, but some that we absolutely have to mention are: The Shawshank Redemption, based on the Stephen King novel; Driving Miss Daisy; Invictus (as Nelson Mandela); Million Dollar Baby; and Glory, as well as narrating documentaries such as Flight of the Penguins, Slavery and the Making of America, Freedom: A History of Us, 30 For 30, American Masters’ episode on Clint Eastwood, and The Civil War.

Freeman’s geek/genre cred cannot be challenged. Most recently, he played Joseph Tagger in Transcendence and voiced a role in The Lego Movie; he’s also appeared in Oblivion; Dreamcatcher; Se7en; The Twilight Zone (TV); Deep Impact; War of the Worlds (narrator, 2005); and played Lucius Fox in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises.

Happy birthday to a talented actor who keeps on keepin’ on.