Tay-Natey Ofuatey-Kodjoe; well that’s a long deep rooted Ga name for a man who can hardly speak his father tongue. Perhaps the novelty of that name christened with Boris Frederick Cecil and a great physique helped in propelling him to model for Ralph Laurent, Perry Ellis, Yves Saint Laurent and The Gap while attending Virginia Commonwealth University. En route the recent Ghana Fashion Week, he did well to trace his Ghanaian heritage by gracing the event with his presence.
The platform for Kodjoe to become a favourite character on screen was on the hit series, Soul Food as Damon Carter. He also blossomed into a rare gem as he dabbled in Hollywood movies like Love & Basketball, Brown Sugar, The Gospel and Madea’s family Reunion. On Broadway, he's worked opposite James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
His international acclaim was debatably certified in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder , Surrogates and Resident Evil: Afterlife. Named as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by people Magazine, it is no surprise he is deemed a supermodel, a feat achieved by a few men in fashion world.
Boris Kodjoe plans on helping his grandmother write a memoir about her gruesome holocaust experience. He revealed in an interview that someone once reported her, but she was lucky that when the SS came to investigate and found her hiding in a back room, one of the officers was in a good mood and didn't arrest her.
It was a time of sheer terror and no one knew what was going on, and everyone knew somebody who had suddenly gone missing for no reason. And apparently you didn't talk about it over the dinner table at night. They were just paralyzed with fear. You didn't utter a word about what could possibly be going on or about what they had heard. It was a very scary time.
In a twisted situation, his German grandfather only agrees to the marriage between his mother, Ursula and Ghanaian father, Eric Kodjoe only after he is born(1973, Vienna). At age 4 he started shaving and feeding his grandfather who had lost both hands in a war. Poignant, deep and emotional are how he describes the religion his mother taught his siblings; Patrick and Nadja and him. Though partly Jewish they had to find their own way based on different religions.
Kodjoe is quad-lingual: German, English, French and Spanish and is mulled over to be a power couple with Nicole Ari Parker by his side. They are not exactly a mainstream Hollywood family. Together with their daughter Sophie Tei-Naaki Lee Kodjoe and baby son, Nicolas Neruda Kodjoe, the family relocated from hustle and bustle LA to a pretty-sedated Atlantis. They did this because they needed a place that spoke to them culturally. Perhaps it was also to help in dealing with Sophie’s ailment; spina bifida.
The Sophie's Voice Foundation is a means to raise awareness to let people know that in US alone, there are 60 million women at risk of having a child with spina bifida, the most preventable birth defect in the world. It can be prevented if pregnant women would take their dose of folic acid every day.
For someone who wants to be remembered as a great dad it is startling his phobia is being a father and that’s simply because “… along with unconditional love comes unconditional fear…” that is one of the things they never tell a new father.
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