Early life

Vance was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 12, 1960, the son of Conroy Vance, a grocery store manager and benefits administrator, and Leslie, a librarian. He attended Detroit Country Day School, and later graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree. While attending Harvard, Vance was already working as an actor at the Boston Shakespeare Company. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree later at Yale School of Drama where he met fellow student and future wife Angela Bassett.

Career

Vance has earned three Tony Award nominations. He won Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Hap Hairston in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy at the 67th Tony Awards (2013). He was nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Corey in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award for Best Play-winning play Fences at the 41st Tony Awards (1987). He was nominated for Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Paul in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation at the 45th Tony Awards (1991). In 1987, he won a Clarence Derwent Award for his role as Cory Maxson in Fences.

Prior to joining the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Vance appeared on the original Law & Order series twice: in a minor role in the first-season episode "By Hooker, By Crook", and in a major role in the fifth season episode "Rage".

His early feature film credits include Hamburger Hill, The Hunt for Red October, The Last Supper, Dangerous Minds, and The Adventures of Huck Finn. More recently, he appeared in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, Penny Marshall's The Preacher's Wife, and in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys. Vance also starred in Love and Action in Chicago, a romantic comedy which he also co-produced. Vance played Black Panther Bobby Seale in the Melvin and Mario Van Peebles docudrama Panther. In 2008 and 2009, he guest starred in the final season of ER, alongside his wife Angela Bassett. He was also in Hurricane Season.

Vance's television credits include such cable movies as:

• Blind Faith (opposite Charles S. Dutton), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor in 1999)
• The 1997 William Friedkin-directed 12 Angry Men (with Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott and Ossie Davis)
• The Hallmark presentation The Boys Next Door (alongside Nathan Lane, Tony Goldwyn, and Michael Jeter)
• The Tuskegee Airmen (with Laurence Fishburne and Andre Braugher)
• The television production of August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson
• The Affair, for which he received a 1996 CableACE Award nomination as Best Actor
• The Showtime presentation Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story
• Guest starred in ER as Russell Banfield, Dr. Catherine Banfield's husband.
• Voiced several ex-slave narratives in Unchained Memories, aired on HBO in February 2003.

On December 2, 2008, TV Guide reported that Vance has been cast as the Los Angeles bureau chief of the FBI in the new ABC pilot FlashForward, which is based on a Robert J. Sawyer novel, and is said to be a possible “companion show” to Lost. In 2011, he starred in the American horror film Final Destination 5. Vance is set for the lead in the German-American apocalypse thriller The Divide.

He also appeared in a Disney Channel Original Movie titled Let It Shine, where he played the Pastor Jacob Debarge, the main character's father. Vance co-starred with Tyler James Williams, Trevor Jackson, Coco Jones, Brandon Mychal Smith, and Dawnn Lewis. It was the third time Vance portrayed a pastor in a motion picture (the first being The Preacher's Wife and the second being Joyful Noise).

Vance has also provided the voiceover for the National Football League's "You Want the NFL, Go to the NFL" television spots.

He appeared as Chief Tommy Delk on the TNT series, The Closer from 2010 to 2011 (Season 6-7). Vance also played the role of Attorney Benjamin Brooks on four episodes of ABC's Revenge. In 2015 he portrayed Miles Dyson in Terminator Genisys.

In 2016, he played the role of Johnnie Cochran in FX's American Crime Story, which tells the story of the O. J. Simpson murder case. The series premiered on February 2, and received critical acclaim for its writing, directing, and acting. Vance's performance was universally acclaimed as well.

Personal life

Vance is married to Angela Bassett, whom he first met in 1980. Together, they have twins, son Slater Josiah Vance and daughter Bronwyn Golden Vance; the twins were born on January 27, 2006. He and Bassett have authored a book, Friends: A Love Story. The two also participate in the annual Christmas celebration, Candlelight Processional, at Epcot. The family lives in Los Angeles.

Vance is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York City, and is an active supporter of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He is an alumnus of the Detroit Boys & Girls Club, and was recently inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame for Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

On the PBS program Finding Your Roots, Vance discovered that his father was born out of wedlock to a 17-year-old woman, Victoria Ardella Vance.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987	Hamburger Hill	Spc. Abraham 'Doc' Johnson
1990	The Hunt for Red October	Seaman Jones
1993	The Adventures of Huck Finn	Jim
1993	Beyond the Law	Conroy Price
1994	Holy Matrimony	Cooper
1995	Panther	Bobby Seale
1995	Dangerous Minds	George Grandey
1995	The Last Supper	Luke
1995	The Affair	Travis Holloway	Nominated—CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Movie or Miniseries
1996	The Preacher's Wife	Reverend Henry Biggs
1998	Blind Faith	John Williams	Nominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead
1998	Ambushed	Jerry Robinson
1999	Cookie's Fortune	Otis Tucker
1999	Love and Action in Chicago	Eddie Jones	Co-producer
2000	Space Cowboys	Roger Hines
2002	D-Tox	Reverend Jones	Also known as Eye See You
2008	Nothing But the Truth	Agent O'Hara
2009	Hurricane Season	Mr. Randolph
2010	Extraordinary Measures	Marcus Temple
2011	The Divide	Delvin
2011	Final Destination 5	Agent Jim Block
2012	Joyful Noise	Pastor Dale
2015	Terminator Genisys	Miles Dyson
2016	Office Christmas Party	Walter
2017	The Mummy		Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	First Affair	Male student	Television movie
1989	Thirtysomething	Curtis	Episode: "Trust Me"
1990	Law & Order	Mayor's Assistant	Episode: "By Hooker, by Crook"
1991	The Emperor's New Clothes	Scribe (voice)	Television short
1992	In the Line of Duty: Street War	Justice Butler	Television movie
1993	Percy & Thunder	Thunder	Television movie
1994	Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad	Thomas	Television movie
1995	Law & Order	Benjamin 'Bud' Greer	Episode: "Rage"
1995	Picket Fences	Warren Grier	2 episodes
1995	The Piano Lesson	Lymon	Television movie
1995	The Tuskegee Airmen	Lt. Glenn	Television movie
1996	The Boys Next Door	Lucien P. Singer	Television movie
1997	12 Angry Men	Foreman	Television movie
1998	Any Day Now	Mr. James Jackson	Episode: "Unfinished Symphony"
1998	The Wild Thornberrys	Makai (voice role)	Episode: "Naimina Enkiyio"
1998	Naked City: Justice with a Bullet	Officer James Halloran	Television movie
1998	Naked City: A Killer Christmas	Officer James Halloran	Television movie
2000	Boston Public	Walter Harrelson	2 episodes
2001-06	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	A.D.A. Ron Carver	111 episodes Nominated—NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series
2002	Whitewash: The Clarence Brandley Story	Clarence Brandley	Television movie
2002	American Experience	Dr. Vivien Thomas	Episode: "Partners of the Heart"
2004	American Experience	Narrator	Episode: "The Fight"
2007	State of Mind	William Banks	3 episodes
2008-09	ER	Russell Banfield	8 episodes
2009	The Spectacular Spider-Man	Roderick Kingsley	Episode: "Accomplices"
2009-10	FlashForward	Stanford Wedeck	22 episodes
2010-11	The Closer	Chief Tommy Delk	3 episodes
2012	Revenge	Benjamin Brooks	4 episodes
2012	Let It Shine	Pastor Jacob DeBarge	Television movie
2013	Graceland	Sam Campbell	Episode: "Pilot"
2014-15	State of Affairs	Marshall Payton	7 episodes
2014	Masters of Sex	Dr. Charles Hendricks	3 episodes Nominated—NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
2015	Scandal	Clarence Parker	Episode: "The Lawn Chair"
2016	American Crime Story	Johnnie Cochran	10 episodes (The People v. O.J. Simpson)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]