福克斯1967年12月13日出生，父母离异后由祖父母抚养长大。他多才多艺，功课很好，同时又擅长音乐与足球。少年时代他曾经担任教堂唱诗班指导和音乐指导，并组织了自己的说唱乐队。在美国国际大学念书的时候专门学习了音乐。也就是在大学时代，他开始成为杰出的喜剧演员。他跟几个朋友参加了戏剧俱乐部并进行演出，受到观众难以置信的喜爱。他毅然决定移居洛杉矶开始他的喜剧生涯。22岁的时候他在喜剧系列片《In Living Color》中扮演了大量角色，后来又在查尔斯-杜顿(Charles Dutton)执导的电视剧中扮演角色。
他是一位电视明星转变而来的影星，从《In Living Color》开始，福克斯在无数电影中扮演过声音沙哑、多愁善感的好人角色，包括在奥利弗-斯通导演的《Any Given Sunday》中扮演有天分但个人本位的橄榄球四分位。
1996年，他在《猫狗相争》(The Truth About Cats and Dogs)中出演配角，并由此与本-卓别林(Ben Chaplin)结为好友。他在影片《The Great White Hype》中出演。次年他在喜剧《Booty Call中与汤米-达维森(Tommy Davidson)联袂主演。1998年他在艾斯-库伯(Ice Cube)导演的《The Players Club》中出演一名DJ，1999年他在《Any Given Sunday》中的表演赢得好评。他随后参与非喜剧片的演出，在安东尼恩-福克(Antoine Fuqua)导演的犯罪片《Bait》中扮演改过自新的前科犯，在《Held Up》中扮演一个卷入便利店劫案的人。
2001年，福克斯重新回到喜剧领域，在迈克尔-曼恩(Michael Mann)执导的《阿里传记》中扮演Drew 'Bundini' Brown，2003年出演席维斯-史泰龙(Sylvester Stallone)的《Shade》一片。2004年他拍的电影不到4部，最值得一提的是他再度与迈克尔-曼恩合作拍摄的《借刀杀人》，该片中他与好莱坞红星汤姆-克鲁斯共同充当主角，扮演一个被胁迫的出租车司机。该角色充分证明了他一度为人们所怀疑的喜剧天分。在泰勒-哈克福德(Taylor Hackford)导演的传记电影《灵魂歌王》中扮演传奇人物蓝调钢琴家雷-查尔斯。福克斯成功再现了雷-查尔斯的独特气质和面貌，许多影评家考虑为他提名奥斯卡奖。
Jamie Foxx (born Eric Marlon Bishop; December 13, 1967) is an American actor, singer, and stand-up comic. Foxx is possibly best known for his portrayal of musician Ray Charles in Ray. With Ray, he became one of the few African Americans to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Jamie studied at Juilliard and San Diego's United States International University in music. Foxx received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on September 14, 2007.
Early life
Foxx was born in Terrell, Texas, the son of Louise Annette Talley Dixon and Darrell Bishop, who sometimes worked as a stockbroker and changed his name to Shahid Abdula after converting to Islam.[1][2] Shortly after his birth, Foxx was adopted and raised by his mother's adoptive parents, Esther[3] Marie (née Nelson), a domestic worker and nursery operator, and Mark Talley, a yard worker.[2][4][3] He has had little contact with his birth parents, who were not part of his upbringing.[1] Foxx was raised in the black quarter of Terrell, Texas, at the time a racially segregated community[1] (In The Kingdom, Foxx makes reference to Terrell). He had a strict Baptist upbringing.[4][5] He has frequently cited his adoptive grandmother's influence on his life.
At his grandmother's urging, Foxx began piano lessons at the age of five. He went on to play for church groups in Terrell, and studied classical music in college. He also played football (quarterback) at Terrell High School, and had an ambition to play for the Dallas Cowboys.
Career
Foxx changed his name while doing stand up comedy , when he found out that female comedians were often called first to perform. He felt Jamie Foxx was an ambiguous enough name to disallow any biases.[8] His last name was chosen as a tribute to Redd Foxx.
In Living Color
Foxx joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991.[4] Here he won over viewers with many unusual characters and impressions, which included: ugly girl Wanda; fictitious boxer Carl "The Tooth" Williams; and The Dirty Dozens champion T-Dog Jenkins. During this time Jamie also had a small recurring role on the live episodes of the TV series Roc, His impersonation of Garrett Morris would eventually find him starring against the former Saturday Night Live cast member in his sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show.
Acting career
Foxx's first dramatic role came in Oliver Stone's 1999 film Any Given Sunday, where he played a heavy-partying football player.[4] He was cast in the role in part because of his background as a football player.[4] Foxx has since evolved into a respected dramatic actor. Following Any Given Sunday, Foxx was featured as taxi driver Max Durocher in the film Collateral alongside Tom Cruise, for which he received outstanding reviews and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.[4] His standout performance, however, was his portrayal of Ray Charles in the biopic Ray (2004), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Foxx is the second male, and the first African American, in history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for two different movies, Collateral and Ray. The only other male actor to achieve this was Al Pacino. In 2005, Foxx was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[9]
Following this success, Foxx appeared in three more movies: Jarhead, Miami Vice, and Dreamgirls which were hits at the box office and lifted Foxx even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood. 2007 brought him the lead role in the film The Kingdom, opposite Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner.
In September 2007, Foxx was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He said, upon receiving the honor, "[it was] one of the most amazing days of my life."[
Music career
Foxx began piano lessons at age five, and later took classical piano lessons while attending college. In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the FOX record label) entitled Peep This. In 2001, he hosted the MTV Video Music Awards.
His music career went into a higher gear when, in 2004, he was featured on rapper Kanye West's song, "Slow Jamz", which also featured Twista. The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, as well as number three on the UK singles chart. Foxx's second collaboration with Kanye West, "Gold Digger", in which he sang the "I Got a Woman" Ray Charles-influenced hook, went straight to #1 on the Billboard Top 100, and remained there for 10 weeks. In 2005, Foxx was featured on the hit single "Georgia" by Atlanta rappers Ludacris and Field Mob. The song sampled Ray Charles' hit "Georgia on My Mind". Unpredictable is Jamie Foxx's second studio release. It sold over 598,000 copies in its first week but reached the U.S. number one spot in its 2nd week.
Debuting at number two, Unpredictable rose to the top of the Billboard pop album chart, with 2nd-week sales of 200,000 copies in the United States. The album also charted in the UK top 10 album chart, peaking at number nine. It has since been certified Platinum. Foxx became the fourth artist to have won an Academy Award for acting and to have achieved a number-one record album in the US. (The other three to accomplish this feat were Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Barbra Streisand.) Foxx's first single from the album, the title track, "Unpredictable" (featuring Ludacris) samples "WildFlower" by New Birth. The song peaked inside the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and also made the UK top 20 singles chart. The second US single from the album was "DJ Play A Love Song", which reunited Foxx with Twista. In the UK, however, the second single was "Extravaganza", which saw Foxx once again collaborate with Kanye West. He was not, however, featured in the song's music video.
At the 2006 BET Awards, Foxx won two awards: Best Duet/Collaboration with Kanye West for "Gold Digger" and Video of the Year for the same video. Kanye's video tied with Mary J. Blige's (Be Without You) for Video of the year. On December 8, 2006, Foxx received a 4 Grammy nominations:
Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for Love Changes feat Mary J. Blige.
Best R&B Album for Unpredictable.
Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for Georgia by Ludacris & Field Mob feat Jamie Foxx.
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for Unpredictable feat Ludacris.
On January 22, 2007, Foxx was on Sirius Satellite Radio, announcing his new "Foxxhole" channel. This channel now features comedy and music by Jamie but also music and comedy by those Jamie respects most.
Foxx recorded a song with country superstars Rascal Flatts entitled "She Goes All The Way" for their album, "Still Feels Good".
Foxx also does background vocals for artist/songwriter Tank. He and The-Dream are featured on Plies' (rapper) "Please excuse my hands"
Legal issues
In April of 2003 Foxx involved in an incident with two police officers who were attempting to escort him and his sister out of Harrah's casino in New Orleans. Employees claimed they had failed to show identification upon entry. Originally charged with trespassing, disturbing the peace, battery on police officers and resisting arrest, Foxx pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace in exchange for the other charges being dropped, and was sentenced to a six month suspended jail term with two years probation and a $1500 fine