Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington has one person in particular to thank for his successful career — his guardian angel, discovers Darryl Smith.

DENZEL Washington has every right to feel lucky. As he approaches his 50th birthday at the end of this month, the sophisticated leading man can reflect on the gifts he’s already received.

Denzel’s been blessed with a combination of good looks, charm and acting ability which has served to make him one of the highest earning stars in Hollywood. 

Two years ago he carried off the Oscar for Best Actor in Training Day, a title for which he’s tipped to earn another nomination at next year’s ceremony after his performance in the gritty kidnap drama Man On Fire.

Last month saw him star in the successful re-make of The Manchurian Candidate and he’s already busy putting together his schedule for the year ahead. He has another film role as ’70s drugs baron-turned-police informer Frank Lucas, and there are plans to make the Sammy Davis Jnr story.

It’s little wonder that the devout Denzel, the son of a Pentecostal minister and a gospel singer, should feel that he has a greater power to thank for his success story.

But with Denzel it runs deeper than a prayer of gratitude. Ever since he was a young boy he has felt destined to achieve his life’s goals, guided along the way by his guardian angel.

Cutting a relaxed figure as he spoke to me on a visit to London, Denzel recalled the incident that set him on his path.

“When I was a young child I thought I saw an angel,” he explains. “I woke up one night and it was there. It looked like my sister, and that sounds funny, but I saw its wings.

“I walked over to the door and opened it so some light could come into the room and it sort of faded away. It’s a true story.

“I asked my mother about it and she said it’s probably my guardian angel, and I was like, ‘Yeah, right, Ma!’ but as I’ve gone on with my career I’ve always felt protected and it’s guided me with the choices I’ve made.

“Some people may think that’s crazy, but that’s the way it’s worked for me.”

Not that he gets the choices right every time. Denzel admits that, on reflection, there are a couple of roles he wishes he hadn’t done — but won’t say what they are for risk of upsetting people. But he is more forthcoming about the roles he feels he should have taken on but didn’t.

“There’s Se7en,” he recalls. “Not seven films, the movie Se7en — I turned that down, the role that Brad Pitt did — man, what was I thinking!

“Another one actually that was a hit this summer was I, Robot — they asked me to do that one. It was either I, Robot or The Manchurian Candidate for me, and I chose to do The Manchurian Candidate.

“But I don’t regret those choices. I’m pleased with what I’ve done.”

As well he should be. Born in 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York, the middle child of three, Denzel was at first intent on a career in journalism.

However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions at Fordham University and upon graduation he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater. 

He left A.C.T. after only a year to seek work as an actor and made numerous appearances in television productions. It was in one of his very first roles, for the TV film Wilma, that he met his future wife, Pauletta Pearson (pictured with Denzel).

The couple married in 1983 after a six-year courtship by which time Denzel had made his breakthrough, starring as Dr. Chandler in the hit medical series St Elsewhere, a role that he would play for six years. In 1989 he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tripp, the runaway slave in Ed Swick’s powerful American Civil War masterpiece Glory.

Through the 1990s Denzel co-starred in big budget productions such as Philadelphia, Crimson Tide and Courage Under Fire — a role for which he was paid $10 million. Now living in Los Angeles with Pauletta and their four children, Denzel has also earned himself a reputation as an actor who excels in playing real-life characters, most notably Malcolm X and boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter in the biopic The Hurricane. So is Sammy Davis Jnr next?

“Now that’s comedy,” chuckles the six-footer. “We could call it The Taller Sammy! or Sammy Grows Up! No, I don’t think so, and please spread that around — I’m not going to play Sammy, I’m going to direct it.

“I directed a film last year for the first time and I’m at a place right now where I’m just as interested in what goes on behind the camera as acting in front of it.

“There are two or three projects that I’m developing and Sammy Davis Jnr’s story is one of them. 

“I don’t have an agenda of things I want to do. The mystery is what’s good about it — opening a script and being blown away. I had never seen The Manchurian Candidate and my agent sent it to me and said, ‘They made it back in the ’60s and you should read it.’ I read it and thought, ‘Wow, it’s a great idea.’ 

“Maybe I’d like to try a comedy next or a romance because I’ve played a few heavy roles in a row. I did Training Day and everybody could see I could do heavy, so all I’ve been offered is heavy for a while. 

“That’s sort of how Hollywood works, they see something is a success and all head in that direction — every book in the Bible’s being optioned now!

“But there’s nothing I really want to do, there’s not any story I necessarily want to tell.”

What he is keen to do, however, is inspire young black actors to follow in his footsteps.

When Denzel won the Oscar for Training Day he became only the second black actor in 75 years of the event, Sidney Poitier being the first, to scoop the Best Actor award. With Halle Berry winning in the Best Female category as well, it was a night full of symbolism.

“I don’t concern myself with awards, I really don’t, and I went along that night with a ‘Yeah, whatever’ kind of attitude about the whole thing. 

“I’d been to the party enough times and not won and I was like, ‘Free suit, decent dinner and go home!’

“But the next day I went to the gym to work out and a young black actor was there, Richard T. Jones, and he said, ‘Man, aren’t you excited?’ and when I explained that I wasn’t he told me, ‘Maybe you feel that way, but not the rest of us.’

“He said that when I didn’t win for Hurricane, he and his friends felt, ‘Well, if he’s not gonna win, what chance do we have?’ So when I won it for Training Day it made him feel like he had a shot.

“So you never know how you’re going to affect people. Maybe it doesn’t affect me that way but it’s not always just about me.

“I think that the bottom line is both Halle and I won because we had good parts to play and needless to say, black or white, good parts are hard to come by. 

“A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot and without that opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are. If you don’t have a juicy role to take a bite out of you won’t be there come awards night.

“But the awards themselves mean very little to me. As my mother says, ‘Man gives the award, God gives the reward.’”

With his strong faith and guardian angel at his side, Denzel Washington is having his fill of both.

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