9 Black Pro Athletes Who Jumped Into Successful Acting Careers

By Nick Chiles | Published on December 10, 2014

Terry Crews

Crews played six years in the NFL after being selected in the 11th round of the 1991 draft. He is perhaps best known for playing Julius on the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris and for his appearances in Old Spice commercials, as well as films such as Friday After Next, White Chicks, Bridesmaids, Idiocracy, Gamer, and The Expendables. Crews starred as Nick Kingston-Persons in the TBS sitcom Are We There Yet? and as himself in the BET reality series The Family Crews. As of 2014, he plays NYPD Sergeant Terry Jeffords on the Fox sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine and hosts the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

O.J. Simpson

Simpson was the first NFL football player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, a mark he set in 1973. Simpson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. Even before his retirement from football and in the NFL, Simpson embarked on a successful film career with parts in films such as the television mini-series Roots (1977), and the dramatic motion pictures The Klansman (1974), The Towering Inferno(1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), Capricorn One (1978), and the comedic Back to the Beach (1987) and The Naked Gun trilogy (1988, 1991, 1994).

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