Mark Wahlberg Audio Biography

Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971), formerly known by his stage name Marky Mark, is an American actor. His work as a leading man spans the comedy, drama, and action genres. He has received multiple accolades, including a BAFTA Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, nine Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

As a youth, Wahlberg was involved in a number of violent and racially motivated attacks. He gained notability as a member of the hip hop group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch in the 1990s, with whom he released the albums Music for the People (1991) and You Gotta Believe (1992). Wahlberg made his screen debut in Renaissance Man (1994) and had his first starring role in Fear (1996). He received critical praise for his performance as porn actor Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights (1997).

In the early 2000s, Wahlberg ventured into big-budget action movies, such as The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), and The Italian Job (2003). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a police officer in the crime drama The Departed (2006). Wahlberg was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for portraying Micky Ward in the sports drama biopic The Fighter (2010). During the 2010s, he landed successful comedy roles with The Other Guys (2010), Ted (2012), Ted 2 (2015), Daddy's Home (2015), and Daddy's Home 2 (2017). Wahlberg also became the protagonist in two films in the Transformers live-action film franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight. He was the world's highest-paid actor in 2017.

Wahlberg served as executive producer of five HBO series: the comedy-drama Entourage (2004–2011), the period crime drama Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014), the comedy-dramas How to Make It in America (2010–2011) and Ballers (2015–2019), and the documentary McMillions (2020). He is co-owner of the Wahlburgers chain and co-starred in the reality TV series about it. Wahlberg received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010.

Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born on June 5, 1971, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the youngest of nine children, including actor Robert and singer/actor Donnie. His mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly; 1942–2021), was a bank clerk and a nurse's aide, and his father, Donald Edmond Wahlberg Sr. (1930–2008), was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War. After his parents divorced in 1982, he divided his time between them.

Wahlberg's father was of Swedish and Irish descent. His mother was of Irish, English and French-Canadian ancestry. On his mother's side of the family, he is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wahlberg was raised Catholic, and attended Copley Square High School on Newbury Street in Boston.

Walhberg has a history of racially motivated attacks starting from when he was a teenager. In June 1986, a 15-year-old Wahlberg and three friends chased after three black children while yelling "Kill the nigger, kill the nigger" and throwing rocks at them. The next day, Wahlberg and the others followed a group of mostly black fourth-graders (including one of the victims from the previous day) taking a field trip on a beach, yelled racial epithets, threw rocks at them, and "summoned other white males who joined" in the harassment. In August 1986, civil action was filed against Wahlberg for violating the civil rights of his victims, and Wahlberg and his friends were issued a civil rights injunction which served as a warning that they would be jailed if they committed another hate crime.

Wahlberg perpetrated another racist assault in April 1988. Then 16, he assaulted a middle-aged Vietnamese-American man on the street, calling him a "Vietnam fucking shit" and knocking him unconscious with a large wooden stick. Later the same day, Wahlberg attacked Johnny Trinh,...