Press Release
African American Lives - "African American Lives 2"
Participant biographies
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
DON CHEADLE
In AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, Don Cheadle learns of ancestors who were enslaved not by white owners but by Chickasaw Indians, who brought their “property” with them to Oklahoma on the tail end of the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native Americans during the 1830s.
Cheadle was born in 1964 in Kansas City, Missouri. He later moved to Lincoln, Nebraska and Denver, Colorado before finally settling in Los Angeles, where he received his B.F.A. from the prestigious California Institute of the Arts.
Cheadle’s breakout performance came opposite Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress, winning him the Best Supporting Actor award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. For his starring role in Hotel Rwanda, the true story of a hotel manager who saved hundreds from slaughter during Rwanda’s genocidal massacres in 1994, he received Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Broadcast Film Critics Award nominations for Best Actor. Other film credits include Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven and Traffic. Cheadle’s television work includes HBO’s The Rat Pack, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for his role as Sammy Davis, Jr.
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2
DON CHEADLE
In AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, Don Cheadle learns of ancestors who were enslaved not by white owners but by Chickasaw Indians, who brought their “property” with them to Oklahoma on the tail end of the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native Americans during the 1830s.
Cheadle was born in 1964 in Kansas City, Missouri. He later moved to Lincoln, Nebraska and Denver, Colorado before finally settling in Los Angeles, where he received his B.F.A. from the prestigious California Institute of the Arts.
Cheadle’s breakout performance came opposite Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress, winning him the Best Supporting Actor award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. For his starring role in Hotel Rwanda, the true story of a hotel manager who saved hundreds from slaughter during Rwanda’s genocidal massacres in 1994, he received Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Broadcast Film Critics Award nominations for Best Actor. Other film credits include Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven and Traffic. Cheadle’s television work includes HBO’s The Rat Pack, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for his role as Sammy Davis, Jr.