Film & TV / Theatre & dance
Courtney B. Vance
born 1960 · actor
Tony- and Emmy-winning Detroit native, a Detroit Country Day graduate and Boys & Girls Club alumnus, famed for playing Johnnie Cochran.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 66- Birth name
- Courtney Bernard Vance
- Detroit years
- 1960–1978
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Courtney B. Vance was born in Detroit on March 12, 1960, the son of a librarian and a grocery store manager who later worked as a benefits administrator. He grew up in the city, went through the Detroit Boys & Girls Club, which later put him in the national Alumni Hall of Fame of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and attended Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills before going east to Harvard, where he graduated in history in 1982. Trained at the Yale School of Drama, he made his Broadway debut in the original production of August Wilson's Fences in 1985. Stage and screen success followed, from Six Degrees of Separation to his Emmy-winning Johnnie Cochran in The People v. O. J. Simpson. He has kept speaking for his hometown: in 2024 he voiced a political commercial about Detroit.
Highlights
- Broadway debut in August Wilson's Fences (1985), first Tony nomination
- Tony Award for Lucky Guy (2013)
- Emmy for playing Johnnie Cochran in The People v. O. J. Simpson (2016)
- Second Emmy for Lovecraft Country (2021)
- Boys & Girls Clubs of America Alumni Hall of Fame
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1970s
Detroit Country Day School
Vance attended this private day school before leaving for Harvard.