A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Alias:
Wesley Trent Snipes
Birthplace:
Orlando, Florida, USA
Born:
July 31, 1962
Wesley Trent Snipes (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor, film producer, and martial artist. He has starred in numerous action-adventures, thrillers, and dramatic feature films and is well-known for his role as Blade in the Blade trilogy. Snipes formed a production company titled Amen-Ra Films in 1991 and a subsidiary, Black Dot Media, to develop projects for film and television. Snipes has been training in martial arts since age twelve, earning a high ranking 5th dan black belt in Shotokan Karate and 2nd dan black belt in Hapkido. He has also trained as a student of Capoeira under Mestre Jelon Vieira and in a number of other disciplines including various styles of kung fu. At age 23, Snipes was discovered by an agent while performing in a competition. He made his film debut in the 1986 Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats. Later that year, he appeared on the trendy 1980's TV show Miami Vice as a drug-dealing pimp in the episode 'Streetwise' (first aired December 5, 1986). In 1987, he appeared as Michael Jackson's nemesis in the Martin Scorsese-directed music video "Bad" (he is seen in only the long version of the video) and the feature film Streets of Gold. That same year, Snipes was also considered for the role of Geordi La Forge in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Snipes' performance in the music video "Bad" caught the eye of director Spike Lee. Snipes turned down a small role in Lee's Do the Right Thing for the larger part of Willie Mays Hayes in Major League, beginning a succession of box-office hits for Snipes. Lee would later cast Snipes as the jazz saxophonist Shadow Henderson in Mo' Better Blues and as the lead in the interracial romantic drama Jungle Fever. Another important role for Snipes was the powerful drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City, which was written specifically for him by Barry Michael Cooper. Another film in which his character was involved in drugs was the somber movie Sugar Hill. Although Snipes is more known for his roles in action films like Passenger 57, Demolition Man (with Sylvester Stallone), Money Train, U.S. Marshals (a sequel of The Fugitive) and Rising Sun (with Sean Connery), he has also had success in comedies like White Men Can't Jump, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar where he played a drag queen together with Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo. Snipes has also been critically acclaimed for his roles in dramas like The Waterdance and Disappearing Acts. Snipes has been married twice; first, to April Snipes from 1985-1990 with whom he has a son, Jelani Asar Snipes, born in 1988. Jelani had a cameo role in Snipes' 1990 film Mo' Better Blues. In 2003, Snipes wed painter Nakyung 'Nikki' Park, who is the mother of his four youngest children: son Akhenaten Kihwa-T Snipes; daughter Iset Jua-T Snipes (born July 31, 2001); son Alaafia Jehu-T Snipes (born May 26, 2004); and son Alimayu Moa-T Snipes (born March 26, 2007). Snipes spends a lot of time in Park's home country of South Korea, which he calls his "second home."
Executive Producer:
2000 Disappearing Acts
2000 The Art of War
2002 Undisputed
???? Outbreak Z
Martial Arts Choreographer:
1998 Blade
2000 Disappearing Acts
2000 The Art of War
2002 Undisputed
???? Outbreak Z
Producer:
1998 Blade
1998 Down in the Delta
1998 The Big Hit
1999 Futuresport
2000 Disappearing Acts
2000 The Art of War
2002 Blade II
2002 Undisputed
2004 Blade: Trinity
2017 Armed Response
2017 The Recall
2023 Back on the Strip
???? Outbreak Z
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.