Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington (b. 1954) is an Academy Award winning actor who appeared on Sesame Street in Episode 2718 as the Grouch poet Henry Wadsworth Wrongfellow. A clip from his appearance is included in Stars and Street Forever.

Oscar the Grouch, when interviewed for Life magazine online, remembered:

“Grouches don't like much poetry, but [his writing] very beautifully made you feel miserable. Finally I tried to arrange to meet the poet, and here comes this guy who looked like Denzel Washington. And he was very pleasant and extremely polite, and I can't tell you my disappointment. 'Well, how do you do?' he says, and 'Nice to meet you,' and he was so very proper and wore a tie that wasn't dirty.… I got pretty upset about it. But still, before the day was over I liked his poetry so much I forgave him. [Now] I have a whole collection [of his work]. I use it to hold up one of the legs of my piano.”

Washington starred in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues and Malcolm X, for which he earned his first Oscar nomination, as well as with Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, with Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief, and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. His earlier career included a regular role on St. Elsewhere. On stage, he performed on Broadway in Julius Caesar (Brutus) and A Raisin in the Sun and off-Broadway in Richard III.

References

• Washington is listed among several other male celebrities in The Muppets episode "Hostile Makeover" as a potential People's Choice Awards date for Miss Piggy.

External Links

• IMDb
• Internet Broadway Database