![]() ![]() His innate screen presence led to his casting in his breakthrough role, that of the drug-addled best friend of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Basketball Diaries (1995), a small-scale but acclaimed film based on poet-musician Jim Carroll's autobiography of his adolescent struggles with heroin addiction. Movies and TV 'Basketball Diaries'Īfter appearing in a 1993 television movie, The Substitute, Wahlberg made his big screen debut in Penny Marshall's Renaissance Man (1994), playing one of a group of Army recruits taught by Danny DeVito's ex-advertising salesman. The 22-year-old's survival instincts kicked in, however, and he soon made a move into another realm of the entertainment world - acting. Combined with the disappointing sales of the Funky Bunch's second album, You Gotta Believe (1992), the public criticism of Wahlberg's career seemed to be steering his career towards certain death. In 1993 this part of Wahlberg's personal life was seriously questioned when he was accused of condoning blatantly homophobic remarks made on a British talk show by his fellow guest, reggae singer Shabba Ranks. His raucous public persona - he once was involved in a much-talked-about brawl with Madonna's entourage at a Los Angeles nightclub - only served to increase his popular appeal, until news began surfacing about his criminal past and his possibly racist and homophobic tendencies. One of pop music's hottest new commodities, Wahlberg (and his rock-hard physique) became even more ubiquitous when he signed a two-year contract with the designer Calvin Klein to model underwear. Driven by the success of the hit singles "Good Vibrations" and "Wildside" - and by Marky Mark's readiness to discard his clothes onstage and in his videos - the album went platinum. What Mark Wahlberg lacked in singing ability, he made up for in charisma and good looks he took on the name of Marky Mark, and with a DJ, backup dancers (dubbed "the Funky Bunch") and Donnie's producing help, he recorded a debut album, Music for the People (1991). Donnie soon decided to help his younger brother find his own niche in the music business. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunchīy the time Wahlberg had emerged from prison, his older brother Donnie had rocketed to stardom as one of five fresh-faced members of the pop band New Kids on the Block. His 45-day stint in prison was a self-proclaimed turning point for the 16-year-old vowing to turn his life around, he also devoted himself to bodybuilding, chiseling his body into impressive form. Two years later, he hit rock bottom when he was jailed for his role in the savage beating of a Vietnamese man. His parents divorced when he was 11, and Wahlberg's mother later blamed her own emotional neglect for her youngest son's descent into juvenile delinquency during the next several years.Īt 14 Wahlberg dropped out of school and began making his living on the streets - hustling, stealing and selling drugs. Wahlberg grew up the youngest of nine children in a working-class family. Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born on June 5, 1971, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Wahlberg was involved in the Academy Award-winning films The Departed and The Fighter, and has since steadily churned out starring roles in such features as Transformer: Age of Extinction, Ted and Daddy's Home. He turned to film in the 1990s, earning acclaim for his work in The Basketball Diaries, Boogie Nights and Three Kings. Mark Wahlberg embarked on an early life of crime before following brother Donnie into the music business, rising to fame as rapper Marky Mark.
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