Dennis Haysbert life and biography

Dennis Haysbert is an American film and television actor. He is known for portraying baseball player Pedro Cerrano in the Major League film trilogy, President David Palmer on the American television series 24, and Sergeant Major Jonas Blane on the drama series The Unit, as well as his work in commercials for Allstate Insurance. He is also known for his authoritative, bass voice.

Haysbert was born in San Mateo, California, the son of Gladys (née Minor), a homemaker, and Charles Haysbert, Sr., a deputy sheriff. He is the eighth of nine children, having two sisters and six brothers. He was struck by an 18 wheeler that blew a red light through an intersection. After high school, measuring 6 feet 4.5 inches (1.94 m) tall, Haysbert was offered various athletic scholarships, but instead chose to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Haysbert is a divorced father of two. He announced in April 2009 that he was starting a TV, film and documentary production company. His first project is a documentary for HBO about an up-and-coming boxer. During the 2010 California elections, Haysbert supported Democratic Senatorial Incumbent Barbara Boxer by appearing with her at campaign events as well as recording radio commercials.

Though success came slowly for actor Dennis Haysbert, by the early 2000s he had become a star on both the big and small screens. He has appeared in such popular hits as Waiting to Exhale and Absolute Power, and costarred with Michelle Pfeiffer in Love Field, the story of an interracial marriage. He has also costarred as David Palmer, the first African-American president of the United States, on the cult hit series 24. At a time when film and television studios have faced criticism for providing few opportunities for black actors, Haysbert has emerged as a popular and critically respected artist.

A congenital heart defect prevented him from enjoying vigorous sports until he was in high school. To compensate, Haysbert acted out games with his siblings. "Dennis was a born actor," his brother Al told People Weekly contributor Jason Lynch. "When he would play cowboys and Indians, you saw the actor in him." Finally permitted to play sports as a teenager, Haysbert still felt the pull of the stage. He discovered theater in high school, explaining in Ebony that "with acting there was a calling and I said, 'I got to do this.' It was about emotional fulfillment."

Haysbert scored another big-screen hit with his performance in Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven. In this film, released in 2003, Haysbert plays Raymond Deagan, a college-educated black gardener who becomes romantically involved with a white housewife (Julianne Moore) in a wealthy Connecticut suburb in the 1950s. The racism and rigid conformity of the era, however, prevent the couple from pursuing a relationship. Haysbert was attracted to the part, he explained to Riley, because of Raymond's refusal to accept the limitations that society imposed on him. "He made his own world," said Haysbert. "Most black people didn't fit into that '50s Tupperware Leave it to Beaver/Father Knows Best/Donna Reed world because we weren't invited. What I like to think of Raymond is that he invited himself."

The film won extravagant praise, and critics noted Haysbert's nuanced and compassionate performance. Calling Far from Heaven a "flawless" film, Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris hailed its expression of "soul-aching American beauty." Though Los Angeles Magazine writer Steve Erickson suggested that the film was ultimately superficial, observed that "for all their flaws, [the characters played by] Moore and Haysbert and [Dennis] Quaid are an impulse away from nobility." In a Boston Globe profile of the actor, Peter Brunette commented that "Amid the stifling conformity and repression of the era, Haysbert's character stands like a beacon of loving kindness."

Films:

Love Field, Orion, 1992.
Waiting to Exhale, Twentieth-Century Fox, 1995.
Heat, Warner Brothers, 1995.
Insomnia, 1996.
Absolute Power, Columbia/Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1997.
The Thirteenth Floor, Columbia/Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1999.
What's Cookin', 2000.
Love and Basketball, New Line Cinema, 2000.
Far from Heaven, Focus Features, 2002.
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Dreamworks, 2003.

Television:

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, NBC, 1979.
Just the Ten of Us, ABC, 1988-89.
24, FOX, 2001-.

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