This week’s thread has highlighted some historical and modern people who have passed. I am going to highlight an actor who admitted his mother was black about 5 or 6 years ago.
Thomas Edward “Tom” Sizemore, Jr. (born November 29, 1961) is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his supporting roles in films such as Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991),Passenger 57 (1992), True Romance (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994), Strange Days (1995), Heat (1995), Saving Private Ryan(1998), Red Planet (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), Pearl Harbor (2001), and for voicing Sonny Forelli in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
Sizemore was born in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Judith (née Schannault), was a member of the city of Detroit ombudsman staff, and his father, Thomas Edward Sizemore, Sr. was a lawyer and philosophy professor. He has three brothers, Charlie, Aaron and Paul. Paul Sizemore is also an actor. He attended Michigan State University for one year, as well as Wayne State University. Sizemore earned a master’s degree in theatre from Temple University in 1986. He subsequently moved to New York City to pursue an acting career.
One of Sizemore’s earliest film appearances was in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July in 1989. Other early roles included Lock Up (1989), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991), Point Break, True Romance, Heart and Souls (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994) and Strange Days (1995). Sizemore starred in the independent drama film Love Is Like That (1993) with actress and model Pamela Gidley. He had a supporting role in Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp as Bat Masterson.
A succession of well-received supporting parts followed by, perhaps the most well known being his portrayal of Michael Cheritto as an armed robber in the heist film Heat (1995). Sizemore’s first major leading role was as Vincent D’Agosta in The Relic (1997). Sizemore had a recurring role on the television series China Beach (1988-1991) as an enlisted man named Vinnie who was in love with Dana Delany’s character. Sizemore continued to play leading and character parts in many films, notably Devil in a Blue Dress (1995),Saving Private Ryan (1998), Bringing Out the Dead (1999) and Witness Protection (1999).
Tom Sizemore, the actor and drug addict who was arrested and went to rehab multiple times, even detoxing on national television when he participated in a season of the VH1 reality show “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.” Sizemore was also once romantically involved with former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, whose 2003 charge that Sizemore physically abused her landed the actor in jail for 17 months.
But it turns out there’s something Sizemore has left to reveal: he’s half-black.
His childhood, African American grandfather and mother and time in jail are the subjects of a one-man show, “I Am Not Sam,” which the the actor performed for about two dozen producers, actors and friends during a private reading held at the Geffen Playhouse.
For much of the reading, he spoke in the voice of his grandfather, Sam, an angry man with a penchant for drinking and a dislike for “white folk.” It was evident that the actor spent a lot of time during his youth with Sam, who was the one to explain to a curious 11-year-old Sizemore “what black is,” and who later cautioned him to never reveal his mixed-race heritage to anyone in Hollywood if he wanted to become a bona fide movie star.
Sizemore began working on the play with writer-director Michael Edwards. He said he merely wanted to tell a story about his grandfather that didn’t do a “disservice” to the man who died in 1998 at age 98.
Still, his mother warned him against the idea. “She thinks it’s too revealing. ‘You’re a martian,’ she said,” recalled Sizemore.
“They weren’t happy about any of that either. My family is very discreet. White-shoe, you know?” he said, referring to his father’s upper-crust job as a Harvard-educated lawyer.
Link to whole story here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/tom-sizemore-one-man-show-geffen.html