Born on September 25, 1968, Willard Carroll Smith II is an American actor, producer of motion pictures, and rapper. At the age of sixteen, Will Smith and Jeff Townes began their wildly successful rap career together as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. After appearing in six seasons of the comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith went on to become a Hollywood A-lister with the films Independence Day (1996) and Bad Boys (1995).
His numerous honours include four Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe. His movies have brought in approximately $9.3 billion worldwide as of 2024, making him one of Hollywood’s most lucrative actors.
Quick Facts
- Birth Name: Willard Carroll Smith II
- Birth Date: September 25, 1968
- Birth Place: Pennsylvania, United States
- Gender: Male
- Career: Actor, Rapper, Producer
- Most Known For: Smith is well-known for starring in hit movies including The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), Men in Black, Hitch, and Ali. In addition, Smith received praise for Concussion (2015) before going back to action roles in Suicide Squad (2016).
Will Smith Biography: Early Life
On September 25, 1968, in Philadelphia, Willard Carroll Smith II was born into a family consisting of Willard Carroll Smith Sr., a refrigeration engineer and member of the US Air Force, and Caroline (née Bright), a school board administrator. His mom is a Carnegie Mellon University alumni.
Raised as a Baptist, he spent his childhood in the Wynnefield area of West Philadelphia. He has two younger siblings, the twins Harry and Ellen, and an older sister, Pamela. He went to Overbrook High School and Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic grade school in Philadelphia. When he was thirteen, his parents split up, and they got divorced somewhere around 2000.
His area in West Philadelphia was a mingling pot of cultures, with a sizable Muslim community coexisting alongside Orthodox Jews. Smith was an excellent student who quickly earned the moniker “Prince” for his endearing nature and sharp tongue, which were known for saving him from trouble.
At the age of twelve, Smith started rapping, modeling his style after Grandmaster Flash and adding a humorous touch to his lyrics that would eventually become his signature. At a gathering at age 16, Smith ran upon Jeff Townes, a future collaborator. After the two grew close, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince was formed. Later in life, he said that his grandmother had influenced his choice to refrain from using foul language in his songs by including a remark in the lyrics.
Musical Career with DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince
With his boyhood buddy Jeffrey “DJ Jazzy Jeff” Townes serving as turntablist and producer, Smith began his career as the MC of the hip-hop combo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. In 1985, Townes and Smith happened to cross paths when Townes was missing his hype man and playing at a house party a short distance from Smith’s home. Smith made the decision to step in.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince started making music as teenagers, but they avoided the gangsta rap style that bands like N.W.A. were bringing out from the West Coast. Middle America considered The Fresh Prince’s clean, curse-free rapping style comfortable and engaging while he discussed youthful obsessions.
“Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble,” the duo’s debut record, became popular in 1986. Rock the House, their 1987 first album became Smith’s first millionaire album before turning eighteen. It peaked at number 200 on the Billboard 200. Smith had no intention of going to college after his early success.
Early on, rumors circulated that Smith had declined a scholarship to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. However, Smith later refuted these claims, telling an interviewer that he had quite excellent SAT scores and that MIT needed Black students, so he could have likely been in. However, he had no plans to attend college.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s album He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper from 1988 saw them maintain their fame. The album, which included the hit songs “Brand New Funk,” “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” and “Nightmare on My Street,” received the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance. And In This Corner…, which followed in 1989, carried on the duo’s ascent to fame.
Throughout 1988 and 1989, Smith underpaid his income taxes while living a lavish lifestyle. Eventually, Smith was hit with a $2.8 million tax debt assessment by the Internal Revenue Service, which also seized several of his belongings and garnished his wages. When the NBC television network signed Smith to a contract in 1990 and developed a comedy, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him, Smith was having financial difficulties.
Acting Career: The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
After two years, Smith started his acting career. NBC hired Smith to appear in a sitcom about a streetwise Philadelphia boy who moves in with stuffy relatives in the affluent Bel-Air suburb of Los Angeles, drawing on his experiences with burgeoning popularity.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran for six seasons and included his pal Towne sometimes, was a great success, playing on his rapper identity. Smith researched the characteristics shared by box office winners and set himself the aim of becoming “the biggest movie star in the world”.
Smith and Towne persisted in creating music in the meantime; their 1991 album Homebase yielded the successes “Summertime” and “Ring My Bell.” 1993’s Code Red, their last album together, was noteworthy for “Boom! Shake the Room.”
‘Six Degrees of Separation,’ ‘Bad Boys,’ and ‘Independence Day’
While continuing to work on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith started a second career in film. A highly lauded lead in Six Degrees of Separation (1993) came after small appearances in the drama Where the Day Takes You (1992) and the comedy Made in America (1993). Smith held his own with Ian McKellen, Stockard Channing, and Donald Sutherland as a streetwise gay hustler who swindles his way into affluent circles.
Smith’s following film, Bad Boys (1995), marked his ascent to superstardom. He teamed up with comedian Martin Lawrence for the high-budget police film, departing from the Black-cop-White-cop formula that had worked so well for Beverly Hills Cop and the Lethal Weapon series. Smith was positioned as leading man potential after the two Black leads became instant successes. Smith played the slick lady killer to Lawrence’s clown.
Subsequently, Smith starred in the epic science fiction film Independence Day (1996), which solidified his status as a prominent figure in Hollywood and the preferred choice for summer blockbusters. He portrayed a pilot spearheading the counteroffensive against extraterrestrial invaders, and his comic skills translated into the witty one-liners that action heroes must be able to utter while taking out their adversaries.
‘Men in Black,’ ‘Enemy of the State,’ and ‘Wild Wild West’
In Men in Black (1997), Smith’s humorous sci-fi action picture, he faced off against aliens once more. Smith, who was Tommy Lee Jones’ old hand at opposite, ate up the screen as the newcomer. The theme tune, which was rapped by Smith, was featured on his 1997 solo album Big Willie Style, which helped the gifted actor get further recognition.
Enemy of the State (1998) was a sleek conspiracy thriller that became another hit film and nominated Smith for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.
He declined to play Neo in The Matrix the next year in favor of Wild Wild West; he subsequently declared that he had no regrets about the choice, claiming that Keanu Reeves’s portrayal of Neo was better than anything Smith could have accomplished. The run of successful films ended in 1999 with the release of Wild Wild West, a science fiction cowboy Western costarring Kevin Kline.
The song that Smith wrote just for the movie turned became a success for his 1999 album Willennium, despite the movie’s dismal box office result. His next major motion picture was The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), in which Smith played Matt Damon’s caddy in an oddball swing.
‘Ali,’ ‘Men in Black II,’ and ‘Bad Boys II’
With the 2001 film Ali, which was based on the life of boxing great Muhammad Ali, Smith was able to reclaim his confidence on the big screen. In order to live up to the athleticism and ego of the title character, Smith put on the performance of his life during his role as the charismatic boxing great.
He trained and disciplined himself to unprecedented extremes. Despite a record-breaking opening day, the picture did not fare well at the box office; yet, Smith’s performance was good enough to earn him a nomination for his first Academy Award.
Next were two sequels, in which Smith played the same roles as in Men in Black II (2002) and Bad Boys II (2003). While neither film was a disaster, neither was as successful at the box office as its predecessor. In 2004, Smith continued the sci-fi action motif with I, Robot. Smith played a future police officer in the Isaac Asimov adaption, looking into a robot-murder case and later fighting a robot rebellion. With a domestic box office total of almost $144 million, the movie did well.
‘Hitch,’ ‘The Pursuit of Happyness,’ and ‘I Am Legend’
Smith played a dating advisor who assists unlucky men with their love moves in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch, putting his smooth-talking charmer persona to work. The theme tune was also written by Smith, who included it on his Lost and Found album in 2005.
After the huge success of Hitch, The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) became a critical and commercial triumph in 2006. Smith enthralled viewers with the tale of a single parent who must start over by building a life, costarring with his real-life son Jaden. For his portrayal, he was nominated for his second Academy Award, this time for Best Actor.
In the 2007 reimagining of Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston, Smith engaged in combat with ferocious vampires in I Am Legend. The movie became well-known both domestically and abroad.
‘Seven Pounds,’ ‘Hancock,’ and ‘Men in Black 3’
Smith subsequently assumed the roles of producer and actor for the films Seven Pounds (2008), which is about a guy who sets out to transform the lives of seven individuals, and Hancock (2008), in which he portrayed an alcoholic anti-superhero. The Secret Life of Bees and Lakeview Terrace, two other movies that year, he also contributed to the production of.
Following a break, Smith made a comeback to the big screen in 2012 with Men in Black 3. She then acted with her son Jaden as a military commander in the highly acclaimed science fiction film After Earth, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. After that, he appeared in the 2014 movie Winter’s Tale as Lucifer.
‘Focus,’ ‘Concussion,’ ‘Aladdin,’ and ‘Spies in Disguise’
The 2015 heist caper Focus, which costarred Margot Robbie, was Smith’s next major performance. Later in the year, he acted in the sports drama Concussion as Dr. Bennet Omalu, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe in recognition of his work as a physician attempting to increase public awareness of brain trauma among NFL players.
Smith’s most popular movie since Independence Day in 1996 was the DC Comics blockbuster smash Suicide Squad, which he starred in in 2016. In the play Collateral Beauty that same year, he also portrayed a more solemn character as a father who loses his little daughter. Even while critics harshly criticized the follow-up project, Bright (2017), audiences reacted more favorably to the urban fantasy crime film.
Smith declared in February 2019 that he will not be making a comeback for the Suicide Squad sequel. At the same period, he was featured in a Grammy Awards commercial as a witty Genie in Guy Ritchie’s live-action version of Disney’s Aladdin, which went on to earn over $1 billion at the box office worldwide.
The next film was Ang Lee’s Gemini Man, in which Smith played a double role as a 50-year-old assassin tasked with killing a 23-year-old version of himself, assisted by digital technology.
The Hollywood star, together with Tom Holland, voiced super-agent Lance Sterling in the animated film Spies in Disguise to round off the year. In 2020, he will debut Bad Boys for Life, the continuation of his popular cop-buddy series.
In the 2021 film King Richard, Smith played tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams’ father and coach, Richard Williams. He was recognized for his work with the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.
Personal Life
Smith has two marriages under his belt. Despite barely lasting three years, his first marriage to Sheree Zampino in 1992 resulted in the birth of Willard Smith III, better known as Trey. Since 1997, he has been wed to the actress Jada Pinkett Smith. In 1998, the couple welcomed a boy named Jaden, and in 2000, they welcomed a daughter named Willow.
He and Pinkett Smith have both acknowledged having extramarital affairs and supporting the right to pursue them. Smith has stated that during treatment, he gave up on his desire to be in a polyamorous relationship with dancer Misty Copeland and actress Halle Berry.
Pinkett Smith said in October 2023 that she and Smith had been apart since 2016, but they didn’t want to have a formal divorce.
