“Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.”

American actor

Ving Rhames is an American actor, born in Harlem, New York City. He studied drama at SUNY Purchase and later at the Juilliard School, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1983. He began acting on stage before making his screen debut in 1985. He drew wider attention with roles in Jacob's Ladder, The People Under the Stairs, and as Marsellus Wallace in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. He is also widely known as Luther Stickell in the Mission: Impossible film series, appearing in all eight installments.