hill harper

Harper signing copies of his book Letters to a Young Brother, 2007 Born Francis Harper[1]

May 17, 1966 (1966-05-17) (age 42)

Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.A.

Hill Harper (born Francis Harper;[1] May 17, 1966) is an American film, television and stage actor. Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Personal life 2 Career 3 Filmography 4 References 5 External links //

Biography

Harper was born in Iowa City, Iowa, the son of Harry Harper, a psychiatrist, and Marilyn Hill, who was one of the first black practicing anesthesiologists in the United States.[1][2][3] Acting since the age of 7, Harper graduated from Brown University (A.B. 1988) and also graduated with a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Barack Obama, and a Master of Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. During his years at Harvard, he was a full-time member of Boston's Black Folks Theater Company, one of the oldest and most acclaimed black theater troupes in the country.

Personal life

Harper adopted the name "Hill" as tribute to both his maternal and paternal ancestors.

Harper is a good friend of actress Gabrielle Union[citation needed].

In January, 2008, he participated in Yes We Can, a music video supporting Barack Obama, produced by Will.I.Am. Harper is a member of the Obama for America National Finance Committee [4].

Hill Harper recently launched a social network ForRealSolutions.com aimed at encouraging solutions to some of society's challenges

Harper endorsed the 10,000 Bookbags back to school backpack campaign to help local disadvantaged children with Urban Change Ministries founder Pastor Jay Cameron of the Life Center and R&B singer Ginuwine [5].

Career

Harper broke into both film and television in 1993, doing recurring work on the Fox series Married...with Children and making his film debut in the short Confessions of a Dog. He had his first substantial role in a feature in Spike Lee's Get on the Bus (1996), which cast him as a UCLA film student riding a bus to the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. He went on to further demonstrate his versatility in such films as Lee's He Got Game (1998) and Christopher Scott Cherot's Hav Plenty (1997), the latter of which featured him as an egotistical pop-soul singer. His profile subsequently rose on both the mainstream and independent film circuits, thanks to roles in films ranging from Beloved (1998) to the independent romantic comedy Loving Jezebel (1999) to The Skulls (2000), an entry into the teen thriller/horror genre. Harper also did some of his most acclaimed work in Jordan Walker Pearlman's The Visit (2000), an independent drama in which he starred as a prisoner dying of AIDS who tries to put his life back together. His best-known role to date is that of coroner-turned-crime-scene-investigator Sheldon Hawkes on the American TV show CSI:NY, the second spin-off from the very successful CSI: Crime Scene Investigation franchise.