Keith David Biography (3)
Keith narrated Ken Burns' millennium project, Jazz, for PBS, and was honored with an Emmy nomination. He is the narrator for Burns' most recent work, Mark Twain, and the upcoming Horatio Drive. Keith voiced the lead in the animated series Spawn for HBO, as well as the lead in Disney's Gargoyles. Keith can be heard commercially on behalf of BMW, UPS, the U.S. Navy, Gatorade, and X-Box.
Immediately after graduation from the Julliard School he was hired as an understudy for the role of Tullus Aufidius in Shakespeare's Coriolanus at Joseph Papp's New York Public Theater. Ten years later he co-starred in the same role opposite Christopher Walken and was the recipient of the Actor's Equity St. Claire Bayfield Award. In 1992, Keith was recognized with a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for Jelly's Last Jam. He also starred on Broadway in August Wilson's Seven Guitars. Keith has performed his jazz/cabaret act at New York's Hotel Delmonico and the Cinegrill in Los Angeles. He fulfilled a lifelong ambition by portraying Othello at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
Keith previously starred in the Oscar-winning Platoon, with Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead, and with Richard Gere and Kim Basinger in Final Analysis. Keith has worked with such directors as Clint Eastwood (Bird), Steven Spielberg (Always) and John Carpenter (The Thing and They Live).
Born in Harlem, NY, and raised in East Elmhurst, Queens, Keith sang in the all-borough choir as a boy. He knew he wanted to act at the age of nine when he appeared as the cowardly lion in his school's production of The Wizard of Oz. He later attended New York's famed High School of the Performing Arts and then graduated from Julliard. There he studied under such voice and speech teachers as Robert Williams and Edith Skinner.
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