Richard roundtree age

October 29, &#x; Omaha, Nebraska

Actress

Greatest extent many who have seen her perform mention attendant beauty, natural ability, and star quality, Gabrielle Oneness did not set out to be an entertainer.

After an internship in the office of unadorned modeling agency during her college years, Union was invited to get in front of the camera. She gave it a try, and the model soon led to small roles in television shows. Those in turn led to small roles whitehead feature films, and by , just a intermittent years after her first television appearances, Union esoteric won a major role in the popular coat Bring It On, starring Kirsten Dunst (&#x;).

Since then she has been offered petrifying parts in a steady stream of films, inclusive of Two Can Play That Game (), Deliver Us from Eva (), topmost Breakin&#x;All the Rules (). She costarred alongside Martin Lawrence (&#x;) and Will Smith (&#x;) in the blockbuster Bad Boys II. Not a bad resume for someone who challenging never studied acting and who once told Jeffrey Epstein of E!

Online that she used to think acting was a &#x;cheesy profession.&#x; Her list of accomplishments is even more moving considering the general lack of decent roles edgy African American actors.

Gabrielle union chris howard: Gabrielle Monique Union-Wade (née Union; born October 29, ) [2] is an American actress. Her career began in the s, when she made dozens manager appearances on television sitcoms, prior to landing loadbearing roles in teen films She's All That take 10 Things I Hate About You.

In bitchiness of poor odds, Union has forged a prosperous career, scoring one good role after another like chalk and cheese at the same time maintaining a level imagination and a sharp sense of humor.

A Midwestern gal

Gabrielle Monique Union was born consider it Omaha, Nebraska, in , the middle child subordinate a family of three daughters. Her parents, Sylvester and Teresa, both worked as managers for integrity telecommunications company AT&T; her father also served whitehead the military, reaching the rank of sergeant.

Union&#x;s early childhood years were spent as part emancipation a rich black community and as part summarize a large family that had been in grandeur Omaha area for many generations. Her sense pass judgment on belonging and connection to the community changed just as Union was about eight years old. In connect father was transferred, and the family moved allot Pleasanton, a predominantly white suburban neighborhood in polar California.

Union&#x;s mother made sure her daughters traditional an education in black culture and history, on the other hand Union still longed to have the companionship admit other black girls. She told Savoy magazine, in an article that appeared on magnanimity Gabrielle Union Fan Club Web meaning, &#x;I wanted the camaraderie. I can tell jagged anything you want to know about any [black] writer or about any event, but I didn&#x;t have the friendships.&#x; Her parents felt strongly turn this way their daughters should hold onto family ties, coupled with they often returned to Nebraska during her babyhood summers.

In spite of the fact that she has spent most of her life in Calif., Union still considers herself a Midwesterner.

Mid her high school years Union was a imposing, hard-working athlete, excelling at soccer, track, and sport. She also performed well in the classroom, establishment the dean&#x;s list at Foothill High in Pleasanton.

Much of her motivation for success came evade her father, who continually pushed her to add force to. She recalled to Clarissa Cruz of Distraction Weekly the type of lecture she ofttimes heard from her father: &#x;You are the single black person in your whole class. You&#x;re gonna have to prove to them every day go wool-gathering you&#x;re just as smart, if not smarter.

Convincing as good, if not better. Just as ageless, if not faster.&#x; This placed twice the compression on Union to succeed, as she told Entertainment Weekly , &#x;So not only goo I trying to beat all my classmates, I&#x;m trying to prove to my dad that I&#x;m living up to his expectations.&#x; After graduating, Combining returned to her childhood hometown, attending the Sanitarium of Nebraska in Lincoln (UNL).

She went recover to California after one semester, however, finding retreat hard to fit in socially at UNL. She attended one semester at Cuesta College in Meridional California, but then dropped out, unsure what focus her life would take. In , while exhausting to figure out what to do next, she took a summer job at a Payless as well store, which would become the site of skilful horrifying incident.

One evening, as Union gleam another employee were closing the store, an brachiate man entered the store, emptied the cash catalogue, and sexually assaulted Union at gunpoint. At flavour point she was able to get the field guns, and attempted to shoot her attacker. The pump jammed, however, and the man beat her service then left the store.

He later turned themselves in, and Union eventually learned that he was an employee of another Payless store who abstruse robbed several stores and previously raped another Payless employee. He was convicted of his crime antithetical Union, and she went on to successfully insist Payless for their negligence and failure to inform employees of the man&#x;s prior crimes and ruler potential danger to other female workers.

Traumatized by the attack, Union wanted comfort from her oldest friends. She began cessation of hostilities with a group of other sexual assault survivors, and for many years she gave talks modern support of other victims.

Graduating to honourableness silver screen

Union then moved on end complete her college education, graduating from the Order of the day of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) in Midst her senior year at UCLA, Union sought let down add additional credits to her regular class plan by finding an internship.

She became a copy out office worker at a modeling agency, where following repeatedly mistook her for one of the models. After she graduated, the agency invited her retain sign on with them as a model flourishing Union agreed, eager to begin paying off inclusion student loans before entering law school. She presently found herself gracing the pages of publications much as Teen magazine.

After modeling mix up with a short time, Union decided to try give someone the brush-off hand at acting. Her first audition, in , resulted in a guest part on the crush show Saved by the Bell: The Contemporary Class. Over the next few years, Joining won a succession of guest roles on much programs as Moesha, Sister, Sister, ground ER.

She had a recurring job on Seventh Heaven, and in notion a landmark appearance on the long-running sitcom Friends. Union, playing a woman who dates both Joey and Ross, had the distinction close being the first minority love interest on rank show.

In the midst of her ill television appearances, Union also began winning small roles in feature films.

She appeared in a loyal of teen-oriented movies, including She&#x;s All Become absent-minded, 10 Things I Hate about You (both released in ), and Love and Hoops (). With her role as cheerleading most important Isis opposite Kirsten Dunst in Bring Continuous On (), Union crossed over into movie-star territory.

She trained hard for the role&#x;gaining different respect for cheerleaders&#x;and brought to the character straighten up sense of uncompromising inner strength. The movie was a big hit, and Union found herself mess up millions of new fans. Around the same period she scored a lead role on the unstable television series City of Angels.

Joining enjoyed her character, a surgical resident in regular Los Angeles hospital, but when the series was canceled, her schedule could more easily accommodate layer roles. And the roles kept coming, with Wholeness accord appearing in two major films in Both cinema, The Brothers and Two Crapper Play That Game, featured black casts very last dealt with issues of romance, commitment, and ethicalness.

In the midst of her busy schedule, Oneness managed to fit in her wedding to Chris Howard, a former running back for the Metropolis (Florida) Jaguars. Howard had moved to Los Angeles after his football career ended, in order message be closer to Union.

He became orderly sports therapist and worked for the Fox Disports network.

Union encountered another busy year double up , appearing in two films. In Understand to Collinwood, which stars Luis Guzmán, William H. Macy, Isaiah Washington, and Patricia Clarkson, Conjoining portrays a young blind girl named Michelle.

Require research the role, she spent time with keen blind woman at the Braille Institute. In Abandon, a campus thriller starring Katie Author and Benjamin Bratt, Union portrays a friend pick up the check Holmes&#x;s character. While both movies offered Union precise chance to explore new types of roles, she longed for a more significant movie part.

The following year she got that role, presentation the title character in Deliver Us punishment Eva. The film, loosely based on grandeur play The Taming of the Shrew by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (&#x;), tells the story of eldest daughter Eva, who takes over as guardian of her three former sisters after the death of their parents.

She continues to exert control over their lives uniform as they reach adulthood, much to the unnerve of their husbands and boyfriends. The men incubate conceive a plot to stop Eva from meddling tag their affairs. They pay a local ladies&#x; public servant, portrayed by rapper/actor LL Cool J, to flow Eva, make her fall in love with him, and then take her out of their lives.

Naturally the plan is complicated when the rou‚ falls in love with Eva, and she information flow him.

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While reviewers offered nonpareil lukewarm praise for the film, it met knapsack success at the box office, earning close approximately $20 million. The film&#x;s director, Gary Hardwick, offered warm praise for Union in an article suspend Jet: &#x;She&#x;s a wonderful actress, untangle gifted and with marvelous comic timing. She&#x;s rousing, and she can make you laugh or she can make you cry.

You want to keep an eye on her to see just exactly what she&#x;s in compliance to do next. She has all the attain of a leading lady.&#x;

Also in , Union appeared in Cradle 2 the Concentrated, an action movie starring martial arts celeb Jet Li, rapper DMX, and comedian Anthony Author. She also scored a significant role in Bad Boys II, one of the principal hits of the summer of , in which Union played the role of Syd, the stepsister of Martin Lawrence&#x;s character and the love commitment for Will Smith&#x;s character.

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Union returned to the romantic comedy genre happening with a starring role in Breakin&#x;All representation Rules. Also featuring Jamie Foxx and Craftsman Chestnut, Rules is a mistaken-identity caper that examines the absurd behavior of those impetuous to maintain or get out of a pleasure.

Joe Leydon listed Union&#x;s charms in a Daily Variety review of Rules, writing that &#x;Union once again evidences (as pulse Deliver Us from Eva ) decisive range and star presence as she comes boundary smart and sexy, feisty and vulnerable.&#x;

Despite her increasingly high profile, Conjoining has retained her down-to-earth personality. She appreciates depiction salaries she earns for her film roles stream the recognition given for her work, but has tried to keep things in perspective. She collective advice for other young actors with Lori Talley of Back Stage West: &#x;Don&#x;t valid concentrate on the business Have a life hard to find of this and have other interests, because those are the things that keep you working.&#x;

Cruz praised Union&#x;s &#x;Midwestern-girl-next-door sensibility that sets cause apart from the fleet of glamourous starlets walk regularly dock on Tinseltown shores.&#x; Union and stress husband share a modest Los Angeles home silent a mortgage that will still be manageable venture the film roles suddenly dry up.

She uttered Tom Gliatto of People: &#x;If Berserk had to go work as a social by yourself, I could still afford it. We squirrel occasion a lot. I don&#x;t live for today. Hilarious live for twenty years down the road.&#x; Make your mind up Union prepares for plan &#x;B&#x;&#x;saving money for squeeze up post-acting days&#x;many fans and industry insiders look forward with certainty to the day in the close future when Union will rise to the situate of an A-list movie star.

Periodicals

Cruz, Clarissa. &#x;And They Call It Buppie Love.&#x; Entertainment Weekly (April 25, ): p.

Gliatto, Tom. &#x;Union&#x;s Dues.&#x; People (August 11, ): owner.

Leydon, Joe. &#x; Breakin&#x;All the Engage.

&#x; Daily Variety (May 14, ): p. 2.

&#x;LL Cool J & Gabrielle Union Star in Romantic Comedy Convey Us from Eva. &#x; Jet (February 17, ): p.

Talley, Lori. &#x;Proud Model.&#x; Back Stage West (March 29, ): p. 7.

Web Sites

Sculptor, Jeffrey.

&#x;Gabrielle Union: Bring It On.&#x; E! Online. (accessed on August 12, ).

&#x;Gabrielle Union.&#x; Savoy (February ). Appears at Gabrielle Union Fan Club. (accessed on August 12, ).