Don Cheadle’s Roles of a Lifetime

The award-winning actor, 10-handicap and internationally renowned humanitarian “does everything aggressively.”

He may be one of Hollywood’s most respected actors, but on this day, he was just another golfer who had spent about seven hours in a car, Santa Monica to Pebble Beach. It was Tuesday before the AT&T National Pro-Am, and a rainsquall sent other golfers—pros and amateurs alike—running for cover. But not Don Cheadle and cousin Mark Cheadle. Clubs on shoulders, they went straight to the first tee.

Don Cheadle, an alum of Denver’s East High, has more than 60 motion picture and television appearances to his credit, and few know that they include that as co-producer for the Academy Award-winning movie Crash. He has become synonymous with quality productions, including this year’s IronMan2.

“He was always performing,” says his father, Don Sr., a retired psychologist who still lives in Denver. Asked to connect the Don as a kid and the successful actor today who plays to a 10 handicap, Cheadle the Elder answers, “He does everything aggressively.”

The Cheadle family moved Denver from Kansas City when Don Jr. was in fourth grade. Don the Younger filled out foursomes at Denver’s John F. Kennedy Golf Course with his dad and uncle Thurman. En route to graduating from East High in 1982, Don was a constant whirlwind of performance activities, from acting to playing the saxophone (John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley). He went to the California Institute of Fine Arts and set upon a steady ascent up Hollywood’s pecking order, appearing in such television shows as “Fame,” “L.A. Law” and “Picket Fences” before making cinematic splashes in Devil in a Blue Dress, Boogie Nights and Traffic.

Then came 2005 and Hotel Rwanda, in which he portrayed Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who saved hundreds of Tutsi from the genocidal Hutu marauders during Rwanda’s civil war. The role ignited his career, earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and inspired his advocacy for African causes, particularly the situation in Sudan’s Darfur region, where a Rwandan-like genocide has claimed more than 300,000 lives and imprisoned than three million people in squalid refugee camps.

To raise awareness of the crisis, he co-founded with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and other celebrities the nonprofit Not On Our Watch and co-authored with renowned human rights activist John Prendergast a book by the same name. He appeared in the 2007 documentary Darfur Now!, and on June 5 in Rwanda, the United Nations United Nations Environmental Programme named him an official Goodwill Ambassador.

Although Cheadle’s passion for golf would suggest a celebrity tournament to raise money for the cause, he and poker champ Annie Duke in 2006 teamed up with friend Norman Epstein to found Ante Up for Africa, an annual high-stakes celebrity poker tournament that takes place in Las Vegas July 3, the Saturday before the beginning of the World Series of Poker’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship. Attracting such stars as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Brad Garrett, Hank Azaria and Ray Romano, the four-year-old event has raised more than $3 million.


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Friendly Wager


On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the host challenged Cheadle to hit a 120-yard chip off the roof of NBC Studios and land it on a makeshift green across the street. His reward for hitting it? The show would donate $5,000 to Ante Up for Africa.
 
Cheadle, who lives in Santa Monica with long-time partner Brigid Coulter and their two daughters, belongs to Mountaingate Country Club, where he gets to play about a round a week, and spends endless hours practicing his putting on a custom green he had built in his backyard.

In that vein, that’s one reason for their play on this cold, blustery day. This was to be Cheadle’s third turn in the AT&T, and he plays in the “A” rotation. He wanted to get ready for Saturday’s appearance on national TV.

Mark worked as Don’s caddie during the tournament, but on this practice round they were friendly opponents. Cheadle and Cheadle, with their caddies, played in just under four hours, and over the last three holes came this conversation with Don.

CAG: When did you know the game was going to be with you?
DC: I took up the game late. I was in my 30s. It was in St. Kitts, with my dad. I didn’t want to suck at it, so I took some lessons. I sucked anyway, but it was worth it.

CAG: Was it that your dad is pretty good? 

DC: But he’s not that so much anymore. It’s more about getting together, and playing with him, or my cousin here, Mark and his dad, my uncle Thurman.

CAG: You seem pretty competitive; does the idea of mastering a difficult game appeal to your nature? 

DC: Early on, every once in a while I’d hit good shots, and they captivated me, and even the bad shots. Even the bad shots have their appeal. You think, How did that happen? It can’t happen, but it does and it shouldn’t.

CAG: When you were young, what sports did you play? 

DC: I didn’t really play. I played some soccer in Denver. And then later, I loved basketball. I played it all the time. Every day. Of course, I don’t have a knee right now.

CAG: So the desire to learn the game came out of togetherness rather than competitiveness, such as beating your dad? 

DC (smiling): You can’t let your dad beat you. You never lose to your dad. You do what you have to do—change the lie, foot wedge. You never give your dad an edge. He already has an edge.

CAG: In today’s Hollywood, what part does politics play, and what part talent? In other words, do you have to play political games to be successful?

DC: It’s a roll of the dice. If you’re in a movie that makes a gajillion dollars and you’re perceived to be the reason why it makes money, then you’re it. But why it happens to some projects and not others, who knows? It’s kismet.

CAG: Do you get to play much on during a shoot or when you travel? 

DC: Sometimes. I was just in Ireland and played Connemara and K Club. I played in Michael Jordan’s tournament at The Ocean Club in the Bahamas.

CAG: Where’s your favorite place to play? 

DC: You’re standing on it.

CAG: Do you play here often? 

DC: Only when I play in this. And it’s hard to beat this—the views and the crowds.

CAG: You play in the “A” group with the big name celebrities. That means you play Pebble Beach on Saturday. The 18th hole can have 20,000 people on it, and there’s national television. Are you nervous?
DC: By then, I’m so over it. I usually have blown so many shots that I’m just me. The last time I played here, I made par on No. 18. My pro was all over the place. It was raining and windy, and I went boom-boom-bing-bing and in. Done. It’s like you all the bad shots out of you and you don’t care, and then the natural talent takes over.

CAG: Are there other places you love to play?
DC: I have played Cypress Point. That was awesome. So is Shadow Creek north of Las Vegas. We played that a lot when we shot Ocean’s 13.

CAG: You, Clooney and who else in those groups? 

DC: Matt Damon plays quite a bit. But George used to play more before he hurt his back.

CAG: Did those games get a little competitive? 

DC: No. It was all love. We played for nothing stakes. Unlike poker.

CAG: Poker games were where the money changed hands? 

DC: Oh, yeah. More than the golf course.

CAG: Did you come away with most of it? 

DC: Or Matt. He plays a lot.

CAG: So when you play at Mountaingate, you’re just Don? 

DC: Yes. I’m just another guy. It’s a regular pot game on Saturday mornings. Small stakes. It’s the type of place where when you’re playing against someone, you help him read his putts, and then cuss him out when he makes it. That’s how competitive it gets.

CAG: Do you like being just another golfer instead of… 

DC: Yeah, it’s just me. I get a way from things a little, and it may sound counterintuitive for some in the business, but I just want to be with the others and treated the same. And I’m trying to play a little more, and it’s been about once a week. But when I’m in down time, I tend to stay home with my two girls.

CAG: I have two girls, too. I find I just follow orders. 

DC: You better. Don’t fight it. I tried to fight it, and now I realize it’s better to just do what they want.
With that, Don’s round ends as the rain shower lightens a little, yielding a large rainbow arcing into in the middle of Carmel Bay. Three fans, two of them young women, wait by the 18th green for an autograph. Don obliges, and as we all walk up towards the front of the Pebble Beach Lodge, more raindrops begin to fall. He holds his umbrella over their heads, as he gets wet. He’s like all my children, Don Sr. says. “They’re good people.”


Contributing Editor Ted Johnson lives in Danville, California.

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