
Al Freeman Jr.
Actor · 1934 – 2012 · San Antonio, Texas, USA
Al Freeman, Jr. (March 21, 1934 – August 9, 2012) was an American actor and director. Freeman made appearances in many films, such as My Sweet Charlie, Finian's Rainbow, and Malcolm X, and television series such as The Cosby Show, Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street and The Edge of Night. He is mostly recognized for his portrayal of Police Captain Ed Hall on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, a role he played from 1972 through 1985, with recurring roles in 1988 and 2000. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for that role, the first African-American actor to be so honored. He left the show briefly to appear in the network's controversial sitcom Hot L Baltimore. During that period, "Ed" was played by another actor, Arthur Pendleton. He was also a director of One Life to Live, and was one of the first, if not the first, African-Americans to direct a soap opera. After leaving One Life to Live, Freeman appeared in the motion picture Down in the Delta. His Broadway theatre credits include Look to the Lilies, Blues for Mister Charlie, and Medea. His portrayal of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in the motion picture Malcolm X earned him the 1995 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Coincidently, he had previously played Malcolm X in the 1979 miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations. Freeman also taught acting as a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C.. Description above from the Wikipedia article Al Freeman, Jr., licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies24
Movie7.6DramaHistoryA tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
Malcolm X
1992 · 2K votes
Movie5.9CrimeMysteryNew York City Police detective Joe Leland investigates the grisly murder of Teddy Leikman, the gay son of a politically influential department store owner. While investigating, he discovers links to official corruption in NYC in this drama that delves into a world of sex and drugs, homophobia, homosexuality and bisexuality.
The Detective
1968 · 79 votes
Movie5.7ComedyDramaDuring the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.
Castle Keep
1969 · 80 votes
Movie5.9FantasyRomanceAn Irishman and his daughter arrive in the American South with a stolen pot of gold, hoping to make their fortune. Pursued by a leprechaun desperate to recover his treasure, they become entangled in a battle over land, love, and prejudice in Rainbow Valley—where the gold’s magic turns wishes, and lives, upside down.
Finian's Rainbow
1968 · 50 votes
Movie4.4ActionCrimeA distraught husband kidnaps the judge who freed his wife's killers on insufficient evidence. He gives him seven hours to find evidence that will put them away, or he'll kill his wife.
Seven Hours to Judgment
1988 · 7 votes
Movie6.3TV MovieThrillerThe story of Johnson Whittaker, one of the first African-American cadets admitted to West Point. Tied down and beaten by his fellow cadets
Movie6.1WarDramaA submarine commander is on a relentless pursuit of a Japanese aircraft carrier in the South Seas during World War II.
Torpedo Run
1958 · 29 votes
Movie6.3DramaA single mother plagued by alcohol and drug addictions is sent with her children from Chicago to her ancestral home in the Mississippi Delta, to live with her uncle and aunt for the summer.
Down in the Delta
1998 · 30 votes
Movie6.5ComedyWar1945, on an old cargo ship somewhere deep in the Pacific ocean: Captain Morton strives to become commander, so he demands the maximum quality of work from his crew, without granting them any freedom or favors - ignoring that they're thousand of miles away from the front. In one word: he drives his crew crazy. They are near mutiny, but no-one dares to do the first step. Until Ensign Pulver plays a prank on the captain that triggers fatal consequences...
Ensign Pulver
1964 · 20 votes
MovieDocumentaryThis documentary has interviews with actors and the director as they arrive for the 1968 New York world premiere of "Finian's Rainbow."
Movie7.2CrimeDramaWhen his former secretary is accused of a murder, Perry Mason gives up a judgeship to defend her.
Perry Mason Returns
1985 · 23 votes
Movie4.3DramaA gang of black militants plots to rob a factory to finance their "revolutionary struggle."
The Lost Man
1969 · 6 votes
Movie4.2RomanceDramaA narrator tells the story of his childhood years in a tightly knit Afro-American community in the deep south under racial segregation.
Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored
1996 · 6 votes
Movie10.0DramaRomanceSean, a twenty-something burned-out baseball player, returns home in an attempt to keep his parents' marriage together. He unexpectedly falls in love with Lena, a waitress at his parents' restaurant, the eve before her wedding. He convinces everyone he's about to make it big, prompting her to question her impending marriage.
Boy Meets Girl
1993 · 1 votes
Movie5.7ComedyA naive chicken farmer from New Jersey moves to Greenwich Village to open a coffee house.
The Troublemaker
1964 · 5 votes
Movie6.0TV MovieDocumentaryA BBC-produced docudrama reconstructing the trial of the Chicago Eight, using courtroom transcripts as its primary source. Directed by Christopher Burstall, the film dramatizes the prosecution of anti–Vietnam War protesters charged with conspiracy and incitement, presenting the proceedings as a precise trial reenactment grounded in documented testimony rather than fictionalized narrative.
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial
1970 · 1 votes
Movie4.5DramaA black radical's ex-wife and children establish a new family unit with a Caucasian man, but he eventually returns to violently besiege them inside their home.
A Fable
1971 · 1 votes
Movie6.8DramaTo combat the problem of drug-dealing juvenile delinquents operating in racial gangs, two recent police academy graduates are sent to a local high school, posing as students. [Initially released in theaters in 1960 as "This Rebel Breed", it was re-released as "The Black Rebels" five years later, re-edited with the addition of a handful of dialogue-free scenes of youths making out in a bedroom, with partial female nudity.]
This Rebel Breed
1960 · 4 votes
Movie6.8DramaTV MovieA pregnant white Southern girl and a black New York lawyer, both on the run in rural Texas, meet up in a boarded-up, abandoned house and realize they both need each other in order to survive.
My Sweet Charlie
1970 · 5 votes
Movie6.2DramaBlack Like Me is the true account of journalist and author John Griffin's experiences when he passed as a black man.
Black Like Me
1964 · 12 votes
Movie7.0DramaTV MovieA mosaic biopic on Lorraine Hansberry, based on the stage play combining her unpublished writings, letters, and diaries.
To Be Young, Gifted and Black
1972 · 2 votes
Movie7.5Drama"For Pete's Sake" is the heartfelt and inspiring story of a man (Robert Sampson) struggling to come to terms with his wife's (Pippa Scott) untimely death, while raising their young son (Johnny Jenson). Sam Groom portrays the family's pastor and Terri Garr debuts as a wayward young woman in this entertaining and thought-provoking comedy-drama.
For Pete's Sake
1966 · 2 votes
Movie7.0WarDramaA combat unit under Capt. Tombol's command undertakes a perilous final patrol amidst heightened tensions, despite an imminent Korean War treaty. Tragically, Tombol steps on a "Bouncing Betty" landmine.
Sniper's Ridge
1961 · 2 votes
Movie4.8DramaA young conservative black man, minding his own business, rides a nearly empty subway car. The only other passenger, a blonde vixen looking for trouble, sizes him up. Sexual tension, racial bigotry and righteous fury collide in a razor's edge confrontation between this unlikely pair.
Dutchman
1966 · 13 votes
Series17
TV7.3CrimeDramaIn cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
Law & Order
1990 · 726 votes
TV5.8ComedyTalk ShowThe Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that originally aired only in the Cleveland area during much of its first two years on the air. It then went into syndication in 1963 and remained on television until 1982. It was distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
The Mike Douglas Show
1961 · 11 votes
TV6.8Talk ShowThe Merv Griffin Show
1962 · 12 votes
TV8.1MysteryDramaAn American police procedural chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Unit.
Homicide: Life on the Street
1993 · 151 votes
TV7.0ComedyFamilyThe Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.
The Cosby Show
1984 · 515 votes
TV5.6CrimeDramaThe F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only.
The F.B.I.
1965 · 25 votes
TV6.3DramaThe Defenders is an American courtroom drama series . It starred E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed as father-and-son defense attorneys who specialized in legally complex cases, with defendants such as neo-Nazis, conscientious objectors, civil rights demonstrators, a schoolteacher fired for being an atheist, an author accused of pornography, and a physician charged in a mercy killing.
The Defenders
1961 · 11 votes
TV7.3CrimeDramaA bald, lollipop sucking police detective with a fiery righteous attitude battles crime in New York City.
Kojak
1973 · 154 votes
TV6.1Action & AdventureDramaAdventures in Paradise is an American television series created by James Michener which ran on ABC from 1959 until 1962, starring Gardner McKay as Adam Troy, the captain of the schooner Tiki III, which sailed the South Pacific looking for passengers and adventure. USA Network aired reruns of this series between 1984 and 1988. The plots deal with the romantic and detective stories of Korean War veteran Troy. The supporting cast, varying from season to season, features George Tobias, Guy Stockwell, and Linda Lawson.
Adventures in Paradise
1959 · 7 votes
TV5.8DramaAn anthology series that explored the ways sudden and unexpected wealth changed life for better or for worse. It told the stories of people who were given one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted they never know him, with one exception.
The Millionaire
1955 · 4 votes
TV7.7DramaHigh-priced Houston lawyer Clinton Judd and his assistant Ben Caldwell take difficult cases throughout the U.S.
Judd, for the Defense
1967 · 3 votes
TV6.8DramaThe DuPont Show with June Allyson is an American anthology drama series which aired on CBS from September 21, 1959 to April 3, 1961 with rebroadcasts continuing until June 12, 1961. The series was hosted by actress June Allyson.
The DuPont Show with June Allyson
1959 · 4 votes
TV6.1Action & AdventureDramaThe Mod Squad was the enormously successful groundbreaking "hippie" undercover cop show that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. It starred Michael Cole as Pete Cochren, Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes, Clarence Williams III as Linc Hayes, and Tige Andrews as Captain Adam Greer. The executive producers of the series were Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas. The iconic counter-culture police series earned six Emmy nominations, four Golden Globe nominations plus one win for Peggy Lipton, one Directors Guild of America award, and four Logies. In 1997 the episode "Mother of Sorrow" was ranked #95 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
The Mod Squad
1968 · 27 votes
TV7.3SoapDramaOne Life to Live is an American soap opera broadcast on television for more than 43 years on the ABC network, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and on the internet as a web series on Hulu and iTunes via The Online Network since April 29, 2013. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature ethnically and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social issues. One Life to Live was expanded from 30 minutes to 45 minutes on July 26, 1976, and then to an hour on January 16, 1978.
One Life to Live
1968 · 19 votes
TV7.5DramaRoots: The Next Generations is a television miniseries, introduced in 1979, continuing, from 1882 to the 1960s, the fictionalized story of the family of Alex Haley and their life in Henning, Lauderdale County, Tennessee, USA. This sequel to the 1977 miniseries is based on the last seven chapters of Haley's novel entitled Roots: The Saga of an American Family plus additional material by Haley. Roots: The Next Generations was produced with a budget of $16.6 million, nearly three times as large as that of the original.
Roots: The Next Generations
1979 · 36 votes
TV6.6DramaThe story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stretching from his days as a Southern Baptist minister in the South of the 1950s until his assassination in Memphis in 1968.
King
1978 · 13 votes
TV5.2Hot l Baltimore was a 1975 American television situation comedy series adapted from a hit off-Broadway play by Lanford Wilson.
Hot l Baltimore
1975 · 6 votes