Thomas Davidson is an American comedian and actor.

He was an original cast member on the sketch comedy TV show In Living Color, Mitchell on Between Brothers (1997-1999), Dexter on Malcolm & Eddie (1999-2000), Oscar Proud on The Proud Family (2001-2005), Rushon in Booty Call (1997), Womack in Bamboozled (2000), Black Dynamite (2009) and its subsequent television series.

In 2022, Davidson appeared on Storybound reading from his book, Living in Color: What's Funny about Me.

Born Anthony Reed in Greenville, Mississippi, Davidson was abandoned in the trash at 18 months old before being rescued by the woman who became his adoptive mother. He was a child of an interracial adoption because his adoptive parents are white. His parents changed his name to Thomas Davidson when they adopted him. He has two older white siblings, Michael and Beryle. He and his family had moved from Colorado to Wyoming to Oregon by the time he was five years old.

His parents divorced when he was five years old, and his mother and the children moved to Washington, D.C. They later moved to Wheaton, Maryland, then the neighborhood of Rosemary Hills in Silver Spring, and then Takoma Park.

He attended Rosemary Hills Elementary School, Sligo Middle School, and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland. After graduating in 1981, he studied communications and interned at the radio station of the University of the District of Columbia for one semester.

He had jobs in the kitchen of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, cleaning at Roy Rogers, bussing tables at an IHOP in Wheaton, and working in the storeroom of Hechinger in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Davidson started his career as a stand-up comedian in 1986 when a childhood friend convinced him to perform stand-up at The Penthouse strip club in Park View, Washington, D.C. He continued performing in various comedy clubs throughout the Washington Metropolitan region, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. He opened concerts for Patti LaBelle, Starpoint, and Kenny G. He served on a fundraising telethon for WHMM in 1987.

Davidson won an amateur stand-up competition at the Apollo Theater in 1987. Soon afterward, he moved to North Hollywood, California, where he met Martin Lawrence, who lived in his building. He performed at the Comedy Store, where Robert Townsend heard of him and asked him to be the warm-up comic for an HBO special.

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