Is Morgan Freeman America's greatest actor? After turning in a string of award-winning film performances, a stage veteran finally sails into movie stardom

Ebony, April, 1990 by Charles Whitaker

Is Morgan Freeman America's Greatest Actor?

It is the kind of postcard-perfect Caribbean day that begs to be experienced in repose. Morgan Freeman is surely dressed for the setting--shirtless and sockless, his bare feet shoved into scuffed-up Topsiders, his mane of sun-reddened and gray-flecked hair brushed nonchalantly away from his face, and nothing but a pair of loose-fitting, blue-denim walking shorts separating him from a charge of indecent exposure.

He is casually reclined aboard his 38-foot sailboat, the Sojourner (named for Sojourner Truth), which is moored in Marigot Bay on the French side of the half-Dutch/half-French island of St. Martin. But despite his languid posture and his no-fuss wardrobe, Freeman is clearly ill-at-ease.

Engaged in that staple of modern journalism known as the celebrity interview--an exercise that should be easy for an actor of Freeman's growing renown--he is having great difficulty assuming his role in this routine. He cannot and will not play "movie star."

"I don't particularly care for the 'movie star' label," he says dismissively. "It's like my agent says, and I believe it: Once you become a movie star, people come to see you. You don't have to act anymore. And, to me, that's a danger."

It's a danger that does not seem to have imperiled Freeman any. For whether he likes it or not, he has become, at age 52, a bonafide movie star. And he remains in the minds of many, an "actor's actor."

Is Morgan Freeman, as influential film critic Pauline Kael dubbed him, "America's greatest actor"? A look at his recent track record seems to justify that title.

In the past year, he has had major or starring roles in four films: as controversial high school principal Joe Clark in Lean On Me, as a relentless cop in pursuit of a career criminal in Johnny Handsome, as a former slave and gravedigger turned sergeant major in the Civil War epic Glory, and as the wise, old chauffeur of a cantankerous, elderly Jewish lady in Driving Miss Daisy.

It is as impressive a body of film work as one is likely to see by any single actor in any 12-month span. Freeman's notices for all four films have been sterling. He is being compared with such multiple Oscar-winner as Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson--all of whom have at one time been anointed with the "greatest American actor" tag.

And Freeman has picked up a boat-load of awards: An NAACP Image Award for Lean On Me, and National Board of Review and Golden Globe Awards for Daisy. But don't expect him to turn cartwheels about the acclaim. He's heard it before.

In the more than 20 years that he has trod across New York stages and appeared on film and television, he has collected enough rave reviews to fill several scrapbooks. In addition to the prizes he has accepted this year, his long career has been highlighted by New York and Los Angeles film critics awards, three Obies (Off-Broadway's highest honor) and nominations for a Tony and Academy Award.

He has played everything from the title role in Shakespeare's Coriolanus (for which he won his first Obie) to the wino Zeke in the short-lived Broadway effort The Mighty Gents.

But the major stardom that was supposed to follow these triumphs somehow eluded him. It is no wonder then thatn Freeman views the current wave of critic-worship with metaphysical detachment. "I always explain my life as life itself," he says, "as this cycle, this wheel that continously moves and has these highs and lows. I think of this year as being just one of those high years, like 1977 when I did a little play called The Last Street Play. I got some really great press then too."

It was not until this year, however, that Freeman was able to achieve the movie stardom he'd dreamed of since his youth in Greenwood, Miss. And now that movie stardom has arrived, he is seeking refuge from the furor by voyaging through the Caribbean in the sailboat that, after acting, is one of his great loves.

"He's having a little bit of trouble accepting this success right now," says Freeman's other great love, his second wife, Myrna Colley-Lee, a costume and set designer who, along with Freeman's eight-year-old granddaughter, E'Dena, is also sailing the high seas. "He wants [the success], and he's enjoying it, but it just hasn't set in that it's really happening for him right now."

Indeed, Freeman has not really adapted to being a "star." He still complains when a dinner out with his wife and granddaughter costs anywhere near $100. At home in Manhattan, where he and Myrna share a large apartment on the Upper West Side, he dresses in the funky-chic style preferred by serious New York actors--jeans and blazers with a scarf or ascot draped or tied about his neck. His jewelry is simple: a wedding band of twisted silver and gold strands and a tiny diamond earring in his right ear.

About the only luxury Freeman has allowed himself is the Sojourner, a sleek ketch equipped with all of the comforts of home. He has been a fanatic sailor ever since his maiden voyage in 1967. The only joy that comes close to sailing, for him, is acting.