Will Smith biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actor, musician. Born Willard Christopher Smith Jr., to mother Caroline, a school board employee, and father Willard C. Smith, the owner of a refrigeration company. His middle class upbringing saw him attend the strict—and Catholic—Overbrook High School, despite his family's observation of the Baptist faith.

His West Philadelphia neighborhood was a melting pot of cultures where Orthodox Jews co-existed with a large Muslim population. Smith was a good student whose charming personality and quick tongue were renowned for getting him out of trouble, a trait for which he soon gained the nickname "Prince.''

Smith began rapping at age 12, emulating heroes like Grandmaster Flash but tingeing his rhymes with a comedic element that would later become his trademark. At 16, Smith met a DJ at a party by the name of Jeff Townes. The pair became friends, and the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince was born.

Rap Success

The pair began producing music, but steered clear of the Gangsta Rap sound that was emerging on the West Coast in groups like Public Enemy and NWA. The Fresh Prince rapped about teenage preoccupations in a clean, curse-free style that middle America found safe and entertaining. The pair's first single, "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," was a hit in 1986. Their debut album Rock the House (1990) hit the Billboard Top 200, and made Smith a millionaire before the age of 18. His early success put any thoughts of attending college out of Smith's mind.

Early on it was reported that Smith had turned down a scholarship to Boston's elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but Smith later dispelled the rumor when he told an interviewer: "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."

In 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince continued their success with the album He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper featuring the radio-friendly singles "Parents Just Don't Understand," "Brand New Funk," and "Nightmare on My Street." The album won the first ever Grammy Award for a Rap Performance. That album was followed by And In This Corner... which continued the pair's rise to stardom.

Crossover into Acting

Two years later, Smith began his remarkable crossover into acting. Drawing on his experiences with fledgling stardom, NBC signed Smith to star in a sitcom about a street-smart kid from Philadelphia.