Press Release
African American Lives - "African American Lives 2"
Participant biographies
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
CHRIS ROCK
Chris Rock’s South Carolina roots go back well into the 19th century. As he learns in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, Rock’s maternal great-great grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, traveled an astonishing life path from slave to soldier to legislator. A black Civil War veteran, Tingman was twice elected to the South Carolina State Legislature during the Reconstruction Era.
Rock was born in 1966 in Andrews, South Carolina and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. After dropping out of high school, he hit the New York comedy club circuit and, with the support of veteran comic Eddie Murphy, landed a string of small parts in television and such films as I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, New Jack City, and Boomerang.
In the early 1990s, Rock secured one of the most coveted jobs in comedy as a cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live. In the late ’90s, Rock achieved huge stand-up success with the HBO specials Bring the Pain and Bigger & Blacker, for which he won a Grammy Award in 1999. He has also made forays into directing with Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife, as well as producing. Rock’s television show Everybody Hates Chris, which he narrates and is inspired by his childhood, debuted on UPN in 2005 and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Television Series the following year.
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
CHRIS ROCK
Chris Rock’s South Carolina roots go back well into the 19th century. As he learns in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, Rock’s maternal great-great grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, traveled an astonishing life path from slave to soldier to legislator. A black Civil War veteran, Tingman was twice elected to the South Carolina State Legislature during the Reconstruction Era.
Rock was born in 1966 in Andrews, South Carolina and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. After dropping out of high school, he hit the New York comedy club circuit and, with the support of veteran comic Eddie Murphy, landed a string of small parts in television and such films as I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, New Jack City, and Boomerang.
In the early 1990s, Rock secured one of the most coveted jobs in comedy as a cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live. In the late ’90s, Rock achieved huge stand-up success with the HBO specials Bring the Pain and Bigger & Blacker, for which he won a Grammy Award in 1999. He has also made forays into directing with Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife, as well as producing. Rock’s television show Everybody Hates Chris, which he narrates and is inspired by his childhood, debuted on UPN in 2005 and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Television Series the following year.