Nate Parker (born November 18, 1979) is an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. He has appeared in Beyond the Lights, Red Tails, The Secret Life of Bees, The Great Debaters, Arbitrage, Non-Stop, Felon, and Pride. Parker's directorial debut feature film, The Birth of a Nation, in which he also starred, made history at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival when Fox Searchlight Pictures acquired the distribution rights for $17.5 million, breaking the record for the most paid for a Sundance Film Festival production, surpassing Little Miss Sunshine, which had been acquired by Searchlight for $10 million ten years earlier. The film was ultimately unsuccessful in wide release and acclaim, after rape allegations against Parker resurfaced.
Early life
Parker was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to Carolyn Whitfield, a 17-year-old single mother. Although Parker's mother did not marry his biological father, Parker had a relationship with his father until his father died from cancer when Parker was 11. Parker's mother's first husband gave Parker his surname. After a divorce, Parker's mother then married her second husband, Walter Whitford, who was in the United States Air Force and was stationed in Bath, Maine. Parker has four younger sisters.
