Damon Kyle Wayans Sr. (; born September 4, 1960) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, and writer. Wayans performed as a comedian and actor throughout the 1980s, including a year-long stint on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live.
Wayans' true breakthrough, however, came as writer and performer on Fox's sketch comedy show In Living Color (1990-1992), on his animated series Waynehead (1996-1997) and on his TV series Damon (1998). Since then, he has starred in a number of films and television shows, some of which he has co-produced or co-written, including Beverly Hills Cop, Mo Money, The Last Boy Scout, Major Payne, Bulletproof, and the sitcom My Wife and Kids. From 2016 to 2019, he starred as Roger Murtaugh in the Fox television series Lethal Weapon. He is a member of the Wayans family of entertainers.
Early life
Wayans was born in Harlem in New York City, the son of Elvira Alethia (Green), a homemaker, singer and social worker, and Howell Stouten Wayans, a supermarket manager. He has five sisters—Elvira, Vonnie, Nadia, Kim and Diedra—and four brothers—Keenen, Marlon, Shawn and Dwayne. He was club footed as a child.
This attribute would also be given to his character in My Wife and Kids, and his character on the short lived cartoon series Waynehead. Wayans attended Murry Bergtraum High School.
Career
Damon started doing stand-up comedy in 1982. His earliest film appearance was a brief cameo as an effeminate hotel employee in the Eddie Murphy film of 1984, Beverly Hills Cop. From 1985 to 1986, he appeared on Saturday Night Live as a featured player, before getting fired after just eleven episodes for improvising during a live sketch, playing his character as a flamboyant gay cop instead of a straight cop. (Damon continued this sketch character in his family created show In Living Color on Fox Television, in 1990, as the flamboyant gay character, Blaine Edwards, an obvious hat tip to Blake Edwards of films starring The Pink Panther.) Wayans later claimed that he wanted to be fired due to lack of creative freedom and screen time. Wayans further explained that Lorne Michaels did not want Wayans to do too much too soon and began drawing comparisons to Eddie Murphy who had just left the show. He also appeared in the syndicated television series Solid Gold during the 1980s as a comedian.
With his brother Keenen, Wayans created the Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color, which had a mostly African-American cast. The show went on the air in April 1990. It continued running until May 1994, although Wayans left the show in 1992 to pursue a film career.
After In Living Color, he starred in films such as Mo' Money, The Last Boy Scout, Major Payne, Celtic Pride, Bulletproof, and The Great White Hype, and wrote and starred in the film Blankman. He also appeared in Janet Jackson's video "The Best Things in Life Are Free" and was considered for the role of The Riddler in Batman Forever (the role went to Jim Carrey, his co star from In Living Color and Earth Girls Are Easy).
In October 1996, he produced Waynehead, a short lived cartoon for The WB, loosely based on his own childhood growing up in a large family, starring a poor boy with a club foot. The show only lasted a season due to poor ratings. From 1997 to 1998, he was the executive producer of 413 Hope St., a short lived drama on the FOX network starring Richard Roundtree and Jesse L. Martin.
In March 1998, he starred in the short lived comedy television series Damon, in which he played a detective from Chicago. It aired on Fox. In 1999, his The New York Times bestselling book Bootleg, with co author David Asbery was published; it is a humorous compilation of his observations about family.
In October 2000, he was the lead in Spike Lee's Bamboozled. Wayans starred in the ABC comedy series My Wife and Kids from March 2001 to May 2005. In the end of 2006, he produced and starred in the Showtime sketch comedy series The Underground, which also featured his son, Damon Jr. He also hosted the June 2006 BET Awards.
In 2011, he also added author of a serious fictional novel to his credits with "Red Hats" which is the story of a suicidal sixty five-year-old woman who finds friendship and happiness, when she joins the Red Hat Society. , Wayans continues to perform stand-up comedy and has developed apps with his company of freelancers "MIMS" (Money in My Sleep). The company created applications such as Flick Dat, Diddeo and VHedz.