Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: Multiracial [1] Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Actor, Wrestling Party Affiliation: See Note [2]
Nationality: United States Executive summary: Yeah, yeah -- we smell it
Dwayne Johnson was the first third-generation wrestler in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). His maternal grandfather was wrestler "High Chief" Peter Maivia, and his father is wrestler Rocky Johnson.
Johnson grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and played football well enough to be offered a number of scholarships. He chose the University of Miami, he said, because they didn't actively recruit him. Johnson was a part of the Hurricanes 1990 NCAA National Championship team. After college, Johnson signed a three year contract with the Canadian Football League's Calgary Stampeders, but a back injury caused him to be cut from the team after his first season. Johnson knew he wanted to be an entertainer, so he spoke to his father about becoming a wrestler. His father was opposed to the idea, but agreed to train his son. Johnson tried out and did well. He joined the United States Wrestling Association and, playing up his Samoan heritage, wrestled as "Flex Kavana". Johnson was a "face", meaning a good guy.
When he moved up to the WWF in 1996, he combined his father's and grandfather's names and wrestled as "Rocky Maivia". Though he was still a face, the crowds were harder to please than they'd been in the minor leagues, and would insult players that seemed too soft. "I became so hated that when I went into the ring I was bombarded with batteries, coins, cans, you name it," he remembers. "I had to leave every night with security covering my head." His persona switched from "face" to "heel", and Johnson began to wrestle as The Rock. His admittedly bad temper led to some memorable moments, as when he furiously chased a San Diego State mascot around the football field during a televised event. He learned to control his temper by "turning the other cheek", and The Rock began to resemble Dwayne Johnson -- charismatic, cocky, and taunting his opponents with lines that are now famous: "lay the smack down!"
As The Rock's popularity grew, he was widely credited with a surge in the popularity of wrestling, and as a result he began crossing over into non-wrestling territory, appearing in Wyclef Jean's video of "It Doesn't Matter", and hosting Saturday Night Live. Acting offers began to come in, and The Rock appeared as his own father on That 70s Show, and played "The Champion" on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. He had a tiny role in a 2000 flop called Longshot, but made a more auspicious debut as the Scorpion King in Brendan Fraser's lukewarm sequel The Mummy Returns in 2001. He has since starred in an eponymous sequel, The Scorpion King, and played a gay bodyguard in Elmore Leonard's Be Cool, with John Travolta and Uma Thurman. His success in movies has been such that The Rock didn't renew his WWF contract when it lapsed at the end of 2004.
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AKA Dwayne Douglas Johnson