- Title: 'Lethal Weapon' star Danny Glover hits 75 on July 22
- Date: 20th July 2021
- Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (FILE - JUNE 19, 2019) (UNRESTRICTED POOL) HEARING IN PROGRESS ON SLAVERY REPARATIONS BILL AT U.S. HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR DANNY GLOVER, SAYING: "A national reparations policy is a moral, democratic and economic imperative. I sit here as the great, great grandson of a former slave, Mary Brown, who was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863." GLOVER TESTIFYING
- Embargoed: 3rd August 2021 21:08
- Keywords: Beloved Blindness Danny Glover Jumanji 2 Lethal Weapon Roger Murtaugh UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador to Ethiopia actor humanitarian
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- Country: USA
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts/Culture/Entertainment,United States
- Reuters ID: LVA002EMSAAML
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS FOOTAGE THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
Star of the "Lethal Weapon" franchise Danny Glover turns 75 on Thursday (July 22).
San Francisco-born Glover is best known for playing long-suffering LAPD Sergeant Roger Murtaugh in the police action thrillers, opposite Mel Gibson's loose cannon cop character Martin Riggs.
The first Oscar-nominated "Lethal Weapon" film was released in 1987, when Murtaugh is not far off retirement age but gets partnered with younger, suicidal narcotics officer Riggs.
Murtaugh and Riggs' last outing on screen in 1998 saw them pair up with loud-mouthed whistleblower-turned-businessman Leo Getz (Joe Pesci), as well as rookie Detective Lee Butters (Chris Rock), to investigate a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring run by Wah Sing Ku (Jet Li). It premiered on the same day Glover had his his hand and foot prints immortalised in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Glover has been nominated for four Emmys, including for his portrayal as former South African President Nelson Mandela in 1987 miniseries "Mandela".
The actor was a guest at Mandela's joint wedding anniversary and 80th birthday banquet in South Africa in July 1998.
The Hollywood star is also a humanitarian, working on many community-based projects.
As the United Nations Development Programme's first goodwill ambassador in 1998, Glover visited UNDP-sponsored projects and events around the world. On the African continent he has helped clear landmines in Zalambessa, Ethiopia to pumping water for the Association of Women Foresters of Burkina Faso who were planting and nurturing endangered species of trees, just outside of the country's capital Ouagadougou.
Glover has been active in promoting the fight against the HIV/AIDs virus, regularly visiting HIV-born South African Nkosi Johnson who was abandoned by his mother who died of the disease in 1997, before being adopted by a former nurse. Sadly, the 12-year-old South African AIDS activist who became the public face of the disease lost his battle against it in 2001.
Glover has also campaigned for workers rights in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2013, supporting union rights while in the country as part of a delegation of the United Automobile Workers Union of America.
More recently in 2019, the activist spoke during a U.S. House subcommittee hearing on a bill proposing potential reparations for descendants of slaves.
Glover described his own experience at the hearing as a descendant of slaves, saying "a national reparations policy is a moral, democratic and economic imperative".
The actor won the BET Humanitarian award in 2004.
Glover recently starred alongside Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Danny DeVito in the latest "Jumanji" film in 2019 about players trying to escape the world's most dangerous board game.
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