Short Biography

Donald Edmond Wahlberg, Jr. (born August 17, 1969) is an American singer, actor and producer. He was a member of the popular 1980s and 1990s boy band New Kids on the Block and is the older brother of fellow actor Mark Wahlberg. With a background that includes music, feature films, and television, Wahlberg is now working as a producer.

Early life
He was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, as the eighth of nine children, with older siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, and Tracey, Michelle, Debbie, and younger sibling Mark. His mother, Alma Elaine (née McPeck), was a bank clerk and nurse`s aid, and his father, the late Donald Edward Wahlberg, was a teamster who worked as a delivery driver; the two divorced in 1982. His paternal grandfather was of Swedish descent, while the majority of his other ancestry is Irish.

Wahlberg began performing in plays as early as the first grade. In high school, he attended a fledgling arts program and became involved in theatre, acting, writing, and directing plays.

Career
At age fifteen, Wahlberg joined New Kids on the Block and in a few years they went from playing at high school parties to becoming a pop music sensation. Donnie was known as the "bad boy" of the group and was known to curse during live performances on awards shows. In April 1991 he was arrested and charged with first degree arson. He apparently was trying to set a hotel on fire with a molotov cocktail fire bomb. These charges were later reduced then dropped because he agreed to do public service commercials. In 1990, Wahlberg scored a hit on the Top 100 with "The Right Combination", a duet with Japanese pop star Seiko Matsuda who was attempting to cross over to North America from the Japanese market. Following the group`s disbanding in 1994, Wahlberg made a decision to go in another direction, focusing on writing and producing for his younger brother, Mark Wahlberg. He was later offered the chance to reunite with his bandmates for a VH1 television show, but like the majority of the group, he declined, citing his desire to focus on his acting career.


In 1994, Wahlberg was a special guest celebrity at WrestleMania X, acting as special guest ring announcer for the main event, as well as joining Bret Hart, along with other wrestlers, in celebrating his World Championship win.

As an actor, Wahlberg`s first film appearance was in the 1996 film Bullet with Mickey Rourke, a project that lit a spark in him, motivating him to continue to work on his craft. Also in 1996, he appeared as a kidnapper in over his head in Ransom with Mel Gibson. Wahlberg received attention for his role in the 1999 film The Sixth Sense, playing the distraught patient of Bruce Willis`s character in the opening sequence. This role was originally intended for a 13-year-old boy until Wahlberg met with writer and director M. Night Shyamalan to inquire about obtaining the rights for a theatre production and ended up getting this pivotal role.

In 2001, Wahlberg co-starred as 2nd Lieutenant C. Carwood Lipton in the Emmy Award-winning television miniseries Band of Brothers. Wahlberg also starred in the 2002–2003 NBC drama series Boomtown as Joel Stevens, an intense Los Angeles police detective struggling to keep his troubled home life private while remaining dedicated to facing the challenges of his daily work life. Graham Yost, executive producer and writer of Boomtown, had worked with Wahlberg in Band of

Miscellaneous Information

Friends and Family

Jonathan Knight [Friend]

Joey McIntyre [Friend]

Danny Wood [Friend]

Jordan Knight [Friend]

Mark Wahlberg [Brother]

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