The future world famous rapper and actor Will Smith was born on September 25, 1968 in sunny Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Parents: mother – Caroline – worked as a modest teacher at school, and father – Willard Smith – worked in the production of refrigeration equipment. He studied at the Overbook School, so well that he earned a scholarship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but refused such a flattering offer, coming to grips with music.
West Philadelphia was then a kind of foundry, where several generations of pure-blooded Jews coexist peacefully with Muslims. Smith was a good student, whose charming personality and fluid tongue got his owner out of trouble and became traits for which he soon earned the nickname “Prince”.
Smith began rapping at the age of twelve, imitating heroes in the Grandmaster Flash style. His lyrics had a comical undertone that would later become his hallmark. At the age of 16, Smith met one of the local DJs, Jeff Townes, at a party. The guys became bosom friends, and the duet “DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince” was born.
Rap
The guys, determined not to waste time, began to write their own music, but avoided the gangsta rap sound typical of the West Coast. The Prince also took care of the texts, clearing them of all sorts of curses and focusing them on a teenage audience.
The duo’s first song, “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble”, became a hit in 1986, and their debut album, “Rock The House”, released the following year, hit the charts of many radio stations and the Top 200, making Smith a millionaire at 17. The first successes put an end to Smith’s further studies, the continuation of which he sometimes thought about.
It was previously reported that Smith turned down a MIT scholarship, but the actor later dispelled that rumor by telling an interviewer, “My mom, who was a school teacher at the time, had friends at the institute. I got pretty good admissions scores.” “But they wanted black children. So I, as a suitable candidate, received an offer. But I never wanted to study there.”
In 1988, “DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince” consolidated their success with the public with the new album “He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper”. “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” “Brand New Funk” and “Nightmare on My Street” earned the album its first Grammy Award for Best Rap Artist. After such a stunning success, the new album “And In This Corner …”, released in 1989, did not make fans wait long for its release and lifted two simple guys to the top of the musical Olympus.
Cinema Experience
Two years later, when teenage fame began to fade, Will tried his hand at television projects, starring in the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where he practically played himself.
The plot tells how a simple black kid who is fond of hip-hop got into trouble with big bosses, and his mother, in order to avoid tragedy, sent her naughty son to Bel Air, where her sister took the boy. The series was a huge success and ran for six seasons.
In the meantime, Smith and Town continued to write music. Their 1991 joint album “Homebase” became popular thanks to the compositions “Summertime” and “Ring My Bell.” The last record, released in 1993 under the name “Code Red”, was known for the song “Boom! Shake the Room”.
While on the set of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith did not forget about other projects as well. “Made in America”, where Will shared the set with famous actress Whoopi Goldberg.
The film “Six Steps of Alienation”, released in 1993, was especially warmly received by critics. Will Smith worked on the same site with such eminent stars. like Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing, who won an Oscar for this role, and Ian McKellen.In this picture, Smith played the role of a charming swindler who entered into a dangerous game with the main characters.
Hollywood Star
Smith starred in the 1996 epic sci-fi film Independence Day, a role that confirmed his talent as a Hollywood actor. In the film, he played an Air Force pilot leading a counterattack against the invasion of alien invaders, and all the talent of comedies in the past played into his hands here: Will threw all sorts of taunts and witticisms towards aliens who decided to take away his house.
Smith seemed to take a liking to the alien theme, as he revisited the fighter against alien evil in his latest sci-fi action blockbuster, Men in Black (1997). Playing alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Smith felt like a scout next to a recognized meter and listened, with his mouth open, to the advice of the latter.
Smith performed the film’s theme song and included it on his 1997 solo album. The song brought the talented actor even more success. Another blockbuster “Enemy of the State” (1998) brought Smith a nomination for the MTV Channel Award for the role of Robert Clayton Dean.
The flurry of hito noticeably subsided in 1999 with the release of Wild, Wild West, a cowboy western with a touch of science fiction, where Smith co-starred with Kevin Kline. Despite small fees and a box office failure, Smith’s tracks, which were not included in the tape, became hits on the 1999 album “Willennium”. The golf film The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) was his next big step into Hollywood. In this picture, Will played the caddy of the protagonist – once a promising former golfer, and now a simple drunkard, played by Matt Damon, who had already become famous by that time.
Sequels
Sequels followed, with Smith returning in Men in Black 2 (2002) and Bad Boys 2 (2003). Both tapes were not a failure, but they were not as warmly received by the audience as their first parts. Smith also became interested in science fiction and starred in the 2004 film I, Robot.
In the adaptation of the novel by Isaac Asimov, Will acted as a police officer investigating a murder involving a robot, and then fighting against all the other robots. The film exploded, grossing over $144 million domestically.
Smith decided to test his talent in other genres and played the charismatic Hitch, who helps modest and inconspicuous guys turn any girl’s head. Smith also wrote the song and included it on his 2005 album Lost and Found. The film was a huge success, followed by the less successful The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). Starring alongside son Jaden, the Smiths captivated viewers with the story of a father who has to build a life from scratch. The Academy Award for the second time marked Will with a second nomination for its award.
In 2007, Smith starred in I Am Legend, a remake of the Charlton Heston film in which he fought bloodthirsty vampires. The film became a national and international hit.
Production and The Defender
Then Smith took on a double job as an actor and producer on Hancock (2008), where he played an alcoholic anti-superhero. He also worked in the film “Seven Lives” (2008), playing the role of a man who wants to change the lives of seven more people for the better. The actor also helped create more than two films released that year: “Welcome to Lakeview!” and The Secret Life of Bees.
This was followed by a break, where Will rested and gained strength, so that Smith returned in 2012, playing in the film “Men in Black 3″, after a triumphant return, he was criticized to the nines due to participation in the fantasy film by M. Night Shyamalan ” After our era, “in which Jayden played – the son of an actor. Then Will played a cameo of Lucifer in the film “Love Through Time” (2014).
Smith then starred in Focus (2015) alongside actress Margot Robbie. That same year, he starred as pathologist Bennett Omalu in the sports drama The Protector, earning him a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of a doctor who battled to prove to the NFL the devastating effects of playing football on the brain. That year, Smith also began filming the 2016 film based on the DC comics Suicide Squad, where he plays Deadshot, an unparalleled hitman for hire.
Private Life
Smith was married twice. The actor first got engaged to Sheri Zampino in 1992 and barely lasted three years. During this time, the couple had a son, Willard, in 1992, who later became known to the public as Trey.
From 1997 to the present, the actor has been happily married to Jada Pinkett Smith, a former actress who left her career and devoted herself to her family. The couple’s son, Jaden, was born in 1998, and their daughter, Willow, was born in 2000.
Smith leans towards liberal political views and has even made donations to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. As of 2015, his net worth is estimated at a crazy $250 million. Smith is a fan of chess and video games and is known for taking his elderly mother to his mother for vacations each year predominantly at Canyon Ranch Spa in Tucson, Arizona.
