This physically imposing African-American character player, often with a shaved head and earring, has embodied complex and credible heavies and flawed men of authority on stage and screen. A native of NYC's Harlem, Rhames was educated at the High School of the Performing Arts and Juilliard before acting on and off-Broadway. He segued to TV with stints on the daytime soaps "The Guiding Light" and "Another World". Rhames first gained notice playing a young incarnation of writer James Baldwin's father in the autobiographical "Go Tell It On the Mountain" (PBS, 1984), delivering a vigorous
