About Al Freeman Jr.
Albert Cornelius Freeman Jr. was an American actor, director, and educator. A life member of The Actors Studio, Freeman appeared in a wide variety of plays, ranging from Leroi Jones' Slave/Toilet to Joe Papp's revivals of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Troilus and Cressida, and films, including My Sweet Charlie, Finian's Rainbow, and Malcolm X, as well as television series The Mod Squad, Kojak, and Maude, and a long-running role on the soap opera One Life to Live. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for that role in 1979, the first actor from the show as well as the first African-American actor to earn the award.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.