In 1994, a sleeper film about two philosophical h*t men, scamming boxers, robbing lovers, and drug dealers in Los Angeles rose to popularity. For wannabe Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Travolta, Pulp Fiction was the career-launching film. Jackson received an Oscar for playing Jules Winnfield, the assassin who adores Jheri-Kurl and uses biblical quotations.
Jackson later starred as an angry father in A Time to Kill (1996), a hostile Harlem shopkeeper in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), and a high roller in Hard Eight (1997). Tarantino selected him as an arms dealer in Jackie Brown, earning him a Golden Globe nomination.
Based on how he looks on-screen, Jackson could play a slick Manhattanite or a Playboy house resident off-screen. He is the head of the family, plays golf on the weekends, and lives in a Tudor on a tree-lined San Fernando Valley street where the biggest sounds are birds and lawn mowers.
“We wantеd our daughter to live in a homеy environmеnt,” says the actor, his mellow baritone commanding a scratchy cell phone somewhere between New York and Toronto.
In 1966, Jackson attended Morehouse College in Atlanta to study acting. After graduating, he and actress LaTanya Richardson from Spelman College moved to New York to seek careers in theater. They had first met there.
They got married, renovated a brownstone in Harlem, and had Zoé off camera. LaTanya’s 1993 CBS program was called Frannie’s Turn. They rented a house in Los Angeles since they knew how fickle Hollywood might be. The cancellation of thirteen episodes.
