Mark Wahlberg
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg, born on June 5, 1971 in Dorchester, Massachusetts , is a former rapper and model turned actor and television producer.
His early claim to fame was as the younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg of the successful bubblegum pop group New Kids on the Block. Mark had originally been recruited by his brother for the group and later hired as an original member. He quit before the group became a success and was replaced with Jaime Kelley who also didn’t last long with the group.
After quitting New Kids on the Block, Wahlberg began recording as Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch in 1990. The group was managed by New Kids on the Block manager, Dick Scott. The first album Music for the People was a success earning a hit with Good Vibrations, but the second album You Gotta Believe was a failure.
Wahlberg was known for his impressive physique which first displayed in the Good Vibrations music video and later in Calvin Klein underwear ads shot by Herb Ritts. He also made a workout video called The Marky Mark Workout: Fitness, Form, Focus.
In 1992, Wahlberg was named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.”
In 1993, he made his acting debut with the TV movie The Substitute.
His big screen debut came in 1994’s Renaissance Man with Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, and Ed Begley Jr. His first foray into serious acting came with The Basketball Diaries (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, Juliette Lewis and Michael Imperioli.
1996 brought a starring role as a psychotic ex-boyfriend in Fear alongside Reese Witherspoon and Alyssa Milano. Perhaps the most memorable role for Wahlberg came as Dirt Diggler in 1997’s Boogie Nights with Burt Reynolds, John C Reilly, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham , Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman.
Wahlberg returned to his home turf for the north of Boston tale Perfect Storm, based on a true story of Gloucester fisherman lost at sea during a colossal collision of storms at sea. George Clooney played the captain of the ship.
Fall 2006 brought the Martin Scorcese Film The Departed also based in Boston, about the South Boston mafia. The star studded film included Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon (another Boston native), Jack Nicholson, and Martin Sheen.
Wahlberg is currently the executive producer of the HBO series Entourage which is loosely based on his experiences in Hollywood .
He has come a long way from his impoverished roots where he and his five brothers and three sisters lived in a crowded three-bedroom apartment after his parents divorce when he was eleven.
When Wahlberg was 14 he dropped out of high school and became involved in petty crime and drugs. At age 16 he was convicted of assault against two Vietnamese men after he tried to rob them, and was sentenced to serve 50 days in prison at Deer Island penitentiary. While in jail Wahlberg developed the buff physique he later used to market himself.
Wahlberg is very close to his mother and bought her a $5 million mansion in Beverly Hills in 2001. In a TV interview in 2004 Mark revealed his close and cruel brush with death when he was booked on one of the planes which flew out of his native Boston on its way to Los Angeles on the morning of September 11th 2001. The plane was later slammed into the side of The World Trade Center in New York by Muslim terrorists. Mark was due to appear at the Toronto Film Festival but instead of boarding the ill fated plane he got in his car and drove to New York where he and a friend later chartered a plane to Toronto to attend the film festival.
003 he became a father for the first time when his girlfriend, Rhea Durham, gave birth to daughter Ella Rae. The couple had their second child, son Michael, on March 21, 2006. |
