Hollywood mainstay Morgan Freeman took the stage as a presenter Sunday night at the 2023 Oscars wearing a single black glove only on his left hand.
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Eagle-eyed social media viewers expressed concern, but it’s not the first time the actor has sported a glove in a public appearance. In fact, there’s a reason behind it.
Freeman, 85, narrowly survived a violent car crash back in 2008 when his automobile flipped multiple times. While he was lucky to walk away at all, Freeman did lose function of his left hand in the aftermath.
“They had to use the jaws of life [hydraulic cutters] to extract him from the vehicle,” a newspaper editor said in The Guardian at the time. “He was lucid, conscious. He was talking, joking with some of the rescue workers at one point.”
The compression glove helps Freeman’s body keep blood flowing despite the permanent nerve damage.“I suffered nerve damage and it hasn’t gotten better. I can’t move it,” he told People in 2010.
Freeman wore the elbow-length glove as he escorted Australian actress Margot Robbie onto the stage at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles to mark 100 years of Warner Bros.
Many fans wrongly assume doctors amputated Freeman’s hand following the crash and that his glove just covers a prosthetic limb. But this is false. Morgan has also stepped out numerous times in public without wearing the compression garment.
Morgan Freeman didn’t truly become a household name until he was about 52 years old
Freeman was driving near his home in Charleston, Mississippi, at the time of the accident. The actor and a female companion were cut free by emergency workers before being airlifted to a hospital 90 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee.
Kathy Stringer, a spokeswoman for the regional medical centre in Memphis, described the then 71-year-old actor’s condition as “serious” at the time.
Mississippi highway patrol sergeant Ben Williams told the Clarion-Ledger newspaper: “Both [occupants] had some injuries, to what extent I do not know. There’s no indication of either alcohol or drugs.”
Freeman won an Oscar in 2004 for his supporting role in boxing flick Million Dollar Baby — directed by and also starring Clint Eastwood. Around the era of his car crash, Freeman was about to enjoy a career resurgence, as well, thanks to summer blockbuster The Dark Knight.
He originally gained widespread acclaim, and a Golden Globe for best actor, for the 1990 film Driving Miss Daisy. In 1994, the Academy nominated him for best actor for his role as Ellis Boyd Redding in the prison drama The Shawshank Redemption.
Shawshank wasn’t an immediate commercial success, but it became a cornerstone of cable programming for the next 20 years before streaming changed entertainment forever. As a result, Freeman has enjoyed an A-list career quite late in life, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
