Chris Rock
*On this date in 1966, Chris Rock was born. He is a Black comedian, author, recording artist, actor, and talk show host.
From Georgetown, South Carolina, Rock was raised in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He is descended from the Udeme people of northern Cameroon. Rock's great-great-grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, was a slave for 21 years before serving as part of the United States Colored Troops until 1866; Tingman fought in the American Civil War. During the 1940s, Rock's paternal grandfather moved from South Carolina to New York City to become a taxicab driver and preacher.
He is the son of Julius and Rose Rock and is from a family of six children. He always dreamed of becoming a comedian. At eighteen, while performing at New York's Comedy Strip, he met Eddie Murphy, who was so impressed with the scathing young comedian that he cast him in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). From there, Rock went on to play a small supporting role with the Not Ready for Primetime Players on the NBC sketch comedy series and Saturday Night Live (SNL), both in 1990.
He remained with SNL for three years, periodically drifting to In Living Color as a guest performer. Rock also found time to make more film appearances, with his character, a crackhead/informant in New Jack City (1991), attracting favorable attention. Rock made his screenwriting debut in 1993 with CB4. In 1996 he married Malaak Compton, who is a publicist. On television, he found success with the 1997 HBO comedy special Bring the Pain! During that time, he earned two Emmy awards. That same year, he also received an Emmy nomination for his work as a writer and correspondent on Comedy Central’s Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Rock went on to entertain with The Chris Rock Show.
In 1996, Rock married Malaak Compton, the founder and executive director of StyleWorks, a non-profit, full-service salon that provides free services for women leaving welfare and entering the workforce. The couple lived in Alpine, New Jersey, with their two daughters, Lola Simone (born in 2002) and Zahra Savannah (born in 2004).
In 1997 Rock recorded and received a Grammy nomination for his comedy album Roll With The New. Two years later, he did it again with his album Bigger and Blacker. In 1998 and 1999, he won Emmy, Cable/ACE, and NAACP Image Award nominations for the Chris Rock Show. Other films include Lethal Weapon 4 and Kevin Smith's Dogma, in 1998. Also, that year, Rock published a book Rock This! In 2002 Rock starred in the film Bad Company. In December 2014, Rock announced that he had filed for divorce her.
On August 20, 2019, Rock and several other celebrities invested in a funding round for Lowell Herb Co, a California cannabis brand. He is known to be "a dedicated cannabis consumer." On September 18, 2020, Chris publicly revealed that he was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disorder. in 2022, while award presenter at the academy awards, he was assaulted by Will Smith
