Laurence Fishburne is famous for so many roles it seems disrespectful to only mention Morpheus in The Matrix series, or the John Wick Films. How about Apocalypse Now, Boyz in the Hood, or his role as Ike Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It? You know who I’m talking about. He was also in The Color Purple (1985) and Pee-wee’s Playhouse as Cowboy Curtis. The man has range. He even did some time at the 4077th. Who did Laurence Fishburne play on MASH?
Laurence Fishburne appeared on MASH in 1982, Season 10, Episode 15, entitled The Tooth Shall Set You Free. He played Corporal Dorsey, a wounded soldier who has a problem with how his commander is handling things. It turns out that this Major Weems, though he seems caring and concerned, wanting to have Dorsey and others sent home to avoid further injury or death, is intentionally sending black soldiers (combat engineers) into harms way to get them wounded. He does this because he doesn’t want blacks in his outfit. Fishburne chews up the screen as Dorsey and is immediately noticeable, with his expressive acting, as he explains why Major Weems isn’t as swell as he may seem to be.
Fishburne also appeared in the MASH “spinoff” Trapper John, M.D. In those days, during the 1980s, he was being credited as “Larry Fishburne.” He became Laurence Fishburne sometimes in the 1990s, perhaps 1993. Here is what he had to say about the shift from Larry to Laurence:
I was Larry as a child. The only people that called me Laurence were my mother and my father, basically. By the time we got to doing Two Trains Running, I was 30. On set, I was always the youngest person, and yet I had children by that time and I had just done Boyz n the Hood. And so I had a shift of consciousness out of being a kid and thinking of myself as a kid and started really thinking of myself as a grown man. I needed to do that because, as actors in general, we have to be childlike in order to do what we do, but we have to live in the real world. And what most people want as adults is to be taken seriously. Larry Fishburne was a kid; Laurence Fishburne is a grown man.
Laurence began acting on state at age 10. He lied about his age to get his first major role, at the age of 14, in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocolypse Now, where he played Clean, a gunner on a swift boat. He worked in small roles, like his MASH appearance, throughout the 1980s and into the 90s, until his role in Spike Lee’s Boyz in the Hood marked him as a major dramatic actor and became his breakout role. Then came the first Matrix movie, where he became a household name as Morpheus. His huge range as an actor has earned him three Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. He also had an Oscar nomination for 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do With It.
