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It was in her care that Foxx discovered a love for music, via the church choir.

After finishing high school as the first Terrell Tiger quarterback to pass for over 1000 yards, Foxx left his small Texas town for the allure of the West Coast, headed for the U.S. International University in San Diego, where he had received a music scholarship for his classical piano skills.

Foxx commented on heading west in a 2004 interview: “I was the original black Beverly hillbilly! I was on the beach in my shoes and my socks, going to the pay phone, calling my homeys, and saying, ‘Whoa, the water out here comes right to the edge of the land,’ just crazy.”

Following college, in an attempt to make his name as a comic, the thenąEric Bishop took on the name and persona Jamie Foxx, a more attractive name to club owners who gave preference to female comics.

“Eric Bishop was Clark Kent,” he has said. “Jamie Foxx is Superman.”

Soon after his stand-up performances took off, Foxx took a spot on the early-’90s sketch comedy show In
Living Color, where his animation of a certain “Ugly Wanda” gave him a platform to integrate subtle political humor into his repertoire alongside his cocky, effervescent antics.

Through the ’90s, Foxx played a handful of roles in movies like The Truth About Cats & Dogs, The Great
White Hype, Bait, and Booty Call (God bless it), but it was his 1999 performance in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday that established him as a credible dramatic actor and paved the way for his future success.

The role as backup quarterback Willie Beamen, Foxx said, “was like Michael Jordan hitting that shot at the end of the game in North Carolina when nobody knew who Jordan was. Things changed.”

In the wake of his performance as Beaman, Foxx moved into the 21st century as the friend and coach of
Ali, with his role as Drew “Bundini” Brown in the Michael Mann film.

Last year, in his Oscar-nominated performance opposite Tom Cruise in Collateral, Foxx played a cab driver forced to accompany a hitman on his reign of terror through a city.

The film proved to be a notable 2004 choice, but Foxx’s acting, rather than comedy, is what stood out in many critics’ minds.

Following the dramatic lead set by his performance in Collateral, Foxx most recently starred in the 2005 bio-epic Ray.

According to director Taylor Hackford, Foxx’s piano abilities and background in the blues made him the obvious choice for such a daunting role.

“I remember thinking, ‘This is fate,’” Hackford said in a November 2004 interview.

The casting choice proved to be right on, as Foxx impeccably imitates not only the onstage persona of the blind musician, but his body language and personal tics as well.

“What I did is that I filmed Ray Charles just being regular, just talking to his kids, ordering his food, how’s he get mad, but he internalized it,” said Foxx in an interview on Oprah.

The Academy of Motion Pictures seemed to see eye-to-eye with audiences, and, as should be known by now, Fox was nominated for Best Actor of the year, among a field in which he stands head-and-shoulders above his competitors.

Love him or hate him, Jamie Foxx has come a long way from “Ugly Wanda.” He has not lost the flair that got him to where he is today.

Instead he has learned to pocket it, in the process giving one of the greatest silver-screen performances of the year, as well as proving the depth of his talent in the industry.