Laurence Fishburne

His role as Mr. Clean in 'Apocalypse Now' (1979)

An excellent, underused actor who finally started getting good roles in the early 1990s, Fishburne caught the acting bug at age 10, and made his film debut in Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975). Four years later he appeared as "Clean," one of the PT-boat crew members accompanying Martin Sheen on his odyssey in Francis Coppola's epic Vietnam saga Apocalypse Now (1979), an experience that Fishburne says had a profound effect on him. He also worked in Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983) and The Cotton Club (1984), Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (1985), and Spike Lee's School Daze (1986), among others, but started making an impact on audiences as a vice lord in King of New York (1990), Gene Hackman's legal assistant in Class Action (1991), and especially, as Furious Styles, the father (and soul) of John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood (1991). Fishburne finally achieved leading-man status as an undercover narcotics agent in Deep Cover (1992), and received a Tony Award that same year for his Broadway debut in August Wilson's acclaimed play, "Two Trains Running." In 1993 Fishburne doffed the name "Larry" in favor of Laurence, and scored an Oscar-nominated knockout as selfish soul singer Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It then turned in a typically strong supporting performance in Searching for Bobby Fischer That same year he won an Emmy for an episode of the short-lived TV series "Tribeca." Since then, he has appeared in Bad Company, Higher Learning and Just Cause (all 1995). Fishburne is also known to many kids as Cowboy Curtis from the TV series "Pee-wee's Playhouse."Source: imdb.com