1. Cuba M. Gooding Jr.
Cuba M. Gooding Jr. is an American actor. He gained his breakthrough role as Tre Styles in Boyz n the Hood (1991); he would go on to appear in A Few Good Men (1992), The Tuskegee Airmen (1995), and Jerry Maguire (1996).
He gained later attention for his role in the epic Pearl Harbor (2001) as Doris Miller, and the ensemble farce Rat Race (2001). He co-starred as actor Dominic Banks in the sixth season of the FX anthology series American Horror Story, subtitled Roanoke.
He has also held roles in films such as As Good as It Gets (1997), American Gangster (2007), Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), and Selma (2014), playing civil rights attorney Fred Gray. He recently portrayed O.J. Simpson in the FX drama series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016).
Gooding was born in The Bronx, New York City. His mother, Shirley (née Sullivan), is a singer with the Sweethearts, and his father, Cuba Gooding Sr., was a lead vocalist of the soul group The Main Ingredient. Gooding has three siblings: April, Omar, and Tommy. His paternal grandfather, Dudley MacDonald Gooding, was a native of Barbados.