American actor, former performer and model. He began his career as a member of the band New Kids On The Block and later pursued a solo career under the pseudonym Marky Mark. As an actor, he is known for his roles in comedies and action films. He has been nominated for two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
In 2010, a star bearing his name was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Mark was born in the suburbs of Boston into a large family and is the youngest of 9 children. His mother (of English, Irish and French-Canadian descent) worked as a bank clerk and his father Donald (of Swedish and Irish descent) was a chauffeur and a veteran of the Korean War. They divorced in 1981 and the children lived with one father or the other. Of the 9 children, Mark and 2 brothers (Donny and Robert) are Donald's, the others were fathered by his mother with another man.
At the age of 13, Mark tried drugs such as cocaine, then dropped out of school and only received his official diploma in 2013.
He has been arrested on several occasions in his teenage years for involvement in acts of vandalism and fights. At the age of 15, Mark was tried for racist attacks on other students (he threw stones at them during a field trip). A year later, under the influence of drugs, he and his friends robbed a pharmacy and later attacked two Vietnamese men, hitting one of them with a stick and knocking out the other's eye (Mark says he has no memory of the attack due to intoxication). He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to two years in prison. Although he was a minor, he had to serve his sentence in an adult colony, which is illegal under US law. "In the end, I was locked up with the guys I always wanted to be like. And I realised: this is not at all what I wanted. I had sunk to the worst place imaginable, and I wanted to never go back to my old life again."
However, he could not avoid the problems. At 21, Mark attacked his neighbour and broke his jaw. A year later, already a hip-hop artist, he attacked Madonna at a party after she said he was a "stranger" and later broke the nose of her agent.
More recently, in 2014, in 2014, he publicly apologised to his victims, but some of them were unkind and said it was doubtful that Mark was remorseful.
In the early 1990s, he formed one of the first boy pop bands, New Kids on the Block, featuring his older brother Donnie as lead singer. Mark was also a member for a while, but soon left the group because he didn't like its image. With his brother's help, he formed the hip hop group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, with whom he recorded one of the biggest hits of 1991, Good Vibrations. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and the group's album went platinum. On the last NKOTB tour before they split up, Mark and the band opened for them.
The band's second album was called You Gotta Believe, but its popularity was considerably lower.
In 1994, Mark recorded Life in the Streets with reggae artist Prince Ital Joe, which featured the popular songs "United" and "Happy People". In 1995, an album of remixes was released.
1995-97 Mark recorded several unpopular singles and his musical career came to an end.
After his imprisonment, Mark became interested in bodybuilding. Later, as a musician, the handsome young man also attracted the attention of modelling agencies. Perhaps the most famous is a series of photographs from 1992 in which he promoted Calvin Klein underwear, both alone and with the famous English model Kate Moss. His photographs have been featured in various fashion magazines and a workout video, The Marky Mark Workout: Form... Focus... Fitness".
