will smith biography in english

Will Smith transitioned from successful rapper to Hollywood A-lister, starring on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air before headlining such films as Independence Day , Men in Black , and Ali .

1968-present

Quick Facts

Music career, movies and tv shows, wife jada pinkett smith and children, who is will smith.

After Will Smith met Jeff Townes at age 16, the duo launched a highly successful rap career as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. Smith starred on the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for six seasons, before establishing himself as a Hollywood A-lister with Bad Boys (1995) and Independence Day (1996). He has since headlined such popular films as Men in Black (1997) and Hitch (2005) and earned Oscar nominations for Ali (2001) and The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). Smith also earned acclaim for Concussion (2015), before returning to action fare with Suicide Squad (2016).

FULL NAME: Willard Carroll Smith Jr. BORN: September 25, 1968 BIRTHPLACE: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania SPOUSE: Sheree Zampino (1992-1995) and Jada Pinkett Smith (1997-present; separated) CHILDREN: Trey, Jaden , and Willow ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Smith was born Willard Carroll Smith Jr. on September 25, 1968, in Philadelphia to mother Caroline, a school board employee, and father Willard C. Smith, a refrigeration company owner. His middle-class upbringing saw him attend the strict Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, despite his family's observation of the Baptist faith. He went on to attend Overbrook High School.

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 future collaborator Jeff Townes at a party. The pair became friends, and the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince was born.

As teens, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince began producing music but steered clear of the gangsta rap sound that was emerging from the West Coast by groups like N.W.A. 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 1987 debut album, Rock the House , hit the Billboard Top 200, and made Smith a millionaire before the age of 18. The 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 & 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 Best Rap Performance. It was followed in 1989 by And In This Corner..., which continued the pair's rise to stardom.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Two years later, Smith began his crossover into acting. Drawing on his experiences with fledgling stardom, NBC signed Smith to headline a sitcom about a street-smart kid from Philadelphia who moves in with stuffy relatives in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air. Playing on his rapper persona, and at times featuring his friend Towne, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was a huge success that ran for six seasons.

Meanwhile, Smith and Towne continued producing music, their 1991 album Homebase producing the hits "Summertime" and "Ring My Bell." Their final album together, 1993's Code Red , was notable for "Boom! Shake the Room."

Where the Day Takes You and Six Degrees of Separation

While still making The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , Smith began a second crossover into movies. Small roles in the drama Where The Day Takes You (1992) and the comedy Made In America (1993) were followed by a critically acclaimed lead in Six Degrees of Separation (1993). Holding his own alongside Donald Sutherland , Stockard Channing and Ian McKellen , Smith played a street-wise gay hustler who cons his way through elite circles.

Smith's first steps into superstardom came with his next film, Bad Boys (1995). The high-budget cop movie saw him team up with comic Martin Lawrence , breaking away from the Black-cop-white-cop formula that had been so successful for Beverly Hills Cop and the Lethal Weapon series. The two Black leads proved an instant success and Smith — playing the smooth lady killer to Lawrence's clown — was established as leading man material.

Independence Day

Smith next took on the epic sci-fi flick Independence Day (1996), a role that confirmed him as a major player in Hollywood and the go-to guy for summer blockbusters. He played a pilot leading the counterattack against invading alien forces, and his comedic talents effortlessly transformed into the pithy one-liners all action heroes need to be able to drop while dispatching their enemies.

Men in Black and Enemy of the State

Smith fought aliens again in his next blockbuster, the comic sci-fi action film, Men in Black (1997). Playing opposite Tommy Lee Jones , Smith chewed up the screen as the new recruit to Jones' old hand. Smith rapped the theme song, and its inclusion on his 1997 solo album, Big Willie Style, brought the multi-talented actor more success. Another blockbuster followed with the slick conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State (1998), which earned Smith an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.

Wild Wild West and The Legend of Bagger Vance

The string of hits came to an end in 1999 with Wild Wild West , a sci-fi cowboy Western co-starring Kevin Kline. Despite the film's lackluster box-office performance, the track Smith cut for the film became a hit on his 1999 album, Willennium . The golf movie The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) was his next big film, with Smith playing the caddie to Matt Damon 's out-of-sorts swinger.

Oscar Nomination for Ali

The 2001 biopic Ali , based on boxing legend Muhammad Ali , gave Smith the opportunity to regain his big-screen swagger. His turn as the charismatic boxing great saw Smith put in the performance of his life, training and disciplining himself to extraordinary lengths to do justice to the athleticism — and ego — of the titular character. The film underwhelmed at the box office despite a record-breaking opening day, but Smith's performance was strong enough to garner him his first Academy Award nomination.

Men in Black II , Bad Boys II , and I, Robot

A couple of sequels were next, with Smith reprising his roles in Men In Black II (2002) and Bad Boys II (2003). Neither was a flop, but neither matched the impressive box-office take of its predecessor. Staying with the sci-fi action theme, Smith moved on to I, Robot in 2004. The Isaac Asimov adaptation featured Smith as a futuristic cop investigating a murder by a robot and then battling a robot insurgency. The film performed well, grossing more than $144 million domestically.

Hitch and The Pursuit of Happyness

Smith's smooth-talking charmer persona was put to use in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch, playing a dating consultant who helps luckless guys with their romantic moves. Smith also penned the theme song and included it on his 2005 album, Lost and Found . Hitch was a massive success, and it was followed in 2006 by another critical and financial hit, The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). Starring alongside his real-life son Jaden , Smith captivated audiences with the story of a single father who has to build a life from scratch. He received his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance.

I Am Legend

In 2007, Smith starred in I Am Legend , a remake of the Charlton Heston film Omega Man , in which he battled bloodthirsty vampires. The film became a national and international hit.

Hancock , Seven Pounds , and Men in Black 3

Smith then took on the dual role of actor and producer for Hancock (2008), in which he played an alcoholic anti-superhero, and for Seven Pounds (2008), about a man who sets out to change the lives of seven people. He also helped produce two more films released that year, Lakeview Terrace and The Secret Life of Bees .

After a hiatus, Smith returned to the big screen in 2012 with Men in Black 3 , followed by a turn as a military commander in the critically panned M. Night Shyamalan sci-fi flick After Earth , which co-starred Smith's son Jaden. He then made a cameo as Lucifer in the film Winter's Tale (2014).

Focus , Concussion , and Suicide Squad

Smith's next leading role came with the 2015 heist caper Focus , co-starring Margot Robbie . Later in the year, he starred as Dr. Bennet Omalu in the sports drama Concussion , earning a Golden Globe nomination for his role as a doctor fighting to raise awareness about head trauma in NFL players.

In 2016, Smith starred in the DC Comics blockbuster hit Suicide Squad , which became his most successful film since 1996's Independence Day . The same year, he also took on a more somber role as a father who loses his young daughter in the drama Collateral Beauty . Although a follow-up endeavor, Bright (2017), was thoroughly panned by critics, audiences responded more positively to the urban fantasy crime flick.

Aladdin , Gemini Man , and Bad Boys for Life

In February 2019, Smith announced that he would not be returning for the Suicide Squad sequel. Around that time, a commercial during the Grammy Awards revealed him as a wisecracking Genie in Guy Ritchie's live-action adaptation of Disney's Aladdin , which went on to top $1 billion at the global box office. Next up was Ang Lee's Gemini Man , which had Smith pulling double duty — with help from digital technology — as a 50-year-old assassin assigned to kill a 23-year-old version of himself.

The A-lister closed out the year by voicing super agent Lance Sterling in the animated Spies in Disguise , alongside Tom Holland , before opening 2020 with a return to his successful cop-buddy franchise in Bad Boys for Life .

Smith has been married twice. His first marriage, to Sheree Zampino in 1992, lasted only three years but produced a son, Willard Smith III (b. 1992), also known as Trey. He has been married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith since 1997. The couple's son, Jaden , was born in 1998, and their daughter, Willow , was born in 2000.

Smith leans politically liberal and has made donations to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama . Smith is a fan of chess and video games and is known to take his mother on vacation every year, usually to the Canyon Ranch spa in Tucson, Arizona.

• I want to represent the idea that you really can make what you want ... I believe I can create whatever I want to create.
• I want to do good. I want the world to be better because I was here.
• I have a great time with my life and I want to share it. I love living. I think that's infectious. It's something that you can't fake.
• Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity. Why would you be realistic?
• There's no easy way round it. Your talent is going to fail if you're not skilled.
• I've never really viewed myself as particularly talented. Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guys sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy is eating, I'm working.
• The first step before anybody else in the world believes it is you have to believe it.
• There's no reason to have a plan B because it distracts from plan A.
• Don't chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work hard.
• I'm a student of patterns, at heart I'm a physicist.

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The Fresh Prince of Belles-Lettres? Will Smith Has a Memoir.

By Alexandra Jacobs

• Published Nov. 9, 2021 Updated Nov. 30, 2021
• Share full article

Fourth of July weekend, 1996. America has gasped en masse watching aliens detonate the White House in the movie “Independence Day” and, at 3 a.m. in Los Angeles, the telephone of its young star, Will Smith, jangles him awake.

It’s his domineering father, calling from Philadelphia to crow about the boffo box office receipts. “Remember I told you ! There’s no such thing as luck,” this man he calls Daddio reminds him several times.

Smith is baffled. Then Daddio, piling on affectionate profanity, concedes he was wrong about being the creator of your own destiny, about success being the result of preparation meeting opportunity and all that. His son, a rapper-turned-sitcom actor and now overnight matinee idol, is just the luckiest man he has ever met.

Titled simply “Will,” with all of that word’s felicitous double entendres of iron and resolve, Smith’s autobiography is indeed a fairy tale of dazzling good fortune — albeit one told by a narrator who admits by the second chapter that he is unreliable, a lifelong embellisher for whom “the border between fantasy and reality has always been thin and transparent.”

The book is also intermittently a call to self-actualization: Written with Mark Manson, a mega-selling personal-growth author himself prone to profanity, it’s sprinkled with homilies like “Living is the journey from not knowing to knowing. From not understanding to understanding. From confusion to clarity.” A Fresh Prince of all media, Smith has so many “angels” to thank along this “journey,” he directs readers to his Instagram account rather than kill more trees with lengthy acknowledgments.

It’s more like a wild ride than a journey, however, one whose most valuable insights are to be gleaned not on Instagram but in a pre-web world of suburban basements, cassette decks, network TV shows, fax machines, party lines and playing outside.

During Smith’s childhood in the Wynnefield neighborhood of West Philadelphia, Daddio was a hard-drinking self-employed refrigeration engineer of militaristic discipline but erratic temper. He once struck Smith’s mother, known as Mom-Mom — an office and then school administrator of her own considerable mettle — so hard she spit blood. Witnessing this at age 9, Will determined heartbreakingly that he was a “coward” for not intervening — a self-characterization that echoes throughout this story and, he theorizes later, drove him to compensate by powering through fear. (For his 50th birthday, he bungee-jumped backward out of a helicopter above the Grand Canyon .)

Smith developed a work ethic bagging ice and laying bricks for the family business, but he felt safest when Daddio, a frustrated photography buff, was making home movies. The camera had no sound and so the little boy learned to ham it up, forever bursting into frame. “I invented photobombing,” he writes.

Years later, when his old man is confined to a wheelchair with heart disease, Smith confesses he contemplated pushing him down a staircase, like Richard Widmark’s character in the film noir “Kiss of Death”: “My 911 call would be Academy Award level.” It’s a rare flash of darkness from a guy whose psychological adaptations were affability and popularity, the desire to make sure everyone around him was having a good time.

In the rap world where he made his name, those traits weren’t always appreciated, and Smith’s reputation for being “soft” and “bubble gum” still rankles. He encountered his share of violence outside as well as inside the home, solidly middle-class though it was. In one early meeting with an annoyed television executive, he and his entourage were so sure a brawl was about to break out that his manager lifted a five-pound snow globe in anticipatory self-defense.

He tells of learning to appeal to white sensibilities at the Catholic school he attended, until his parents withdrew him after a racist incident at the football awards banquet; and of getting into what Mom-Mom calls “hippity-hopping” at Overbrook High, which was predominantly Black. Smith’s collaboration with Jeffrey Allen Townes, a.k.a. DJ Jazzy Jeff, a nerdy kid from another neighborhood who survived non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was so successful, with a hit song before graduation, that Smith decided against college. “We were seeking our sound,” he writes of their intense early partnership, “but we found ourselves.”

Scenes from tours with Public Enemy and 2 Live Crew are amazing 3-D postcards from the rosy dawn of the genre, including friction with local law enforcement in the South, onstage fellatio and the nightly “hanging” of a stuntman in a Ku Klux Klan hood. Smith squandered his earnings and neglected to pay taxes, only to get a lucky second break from Quincy Jones, his Obi Wan Kenobi, to star with Townes on a custom-built sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

Though Smith claims he didn’t read a book cover to cover until he was “well into” his 20s, he has the literary aplomb (thanks partly to Mom-Mom) and the trust in his manager’s discernment to turn down $10 million for an early project called “8 Heads in a Duffel Bag,” choosing instead Paul Poitier in John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” for $300,000. Eventually he gorges on magical realism and mythology, falling in love with Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” and Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.”

Smith’s own hero’s quest, at first, is for more money (“sucking all the cash out of the weekend”), more fame, more global records, a house as palatial as the one he saw growing up on “Dallas” — no matter that his second wife, the formidable Jada Pinkett, doesn’t want to arrive at breakfast on a stallion the way Sue Ellen Ewing did.

As the book progresses, and Smith’s celebrity becomes more stratospheric and snow globe-like, the air grows thinner; he starts to gasp for breath and turns inward. “Am I an addict?” he wonders during a period of introspection that includes meditation, a trip to Trinidad, the therapeutic identification of a persona called Uncle Fluffy and over a dozen ayahuasca ceremonies. He’s not hooked on drugs, or drink, or “sex like some ghetto hyena.” Smith is a workaholic, and a win-aholic, those most virtuous and therefore invisible of vices.

Writing a book that will probably blow up the charts, and publicizing it, may not be good for his recovery. But one day at a time.

Alexandra Jacobs is a book critic for The Times and the author of “Still Here: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch.” Follow her on Twitter: @AlexandraJacobs .

Will By Will Smith with Mark Manson Illustrated. 418 pages. Penguin Press. $30.

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Get Powerful Life Lessons Directly From One of the Most Successful Stars on the Planet

A number of years ago, Will Smith and his team contacted me telling me that he wanted help to write a book about his life. He wanted to not only share his stories but also impart some of his life’s lessons, recounting how he overcame struggles and setbacks, survived abuse, trauma and racism, and came out the other end one of the biggest icons on the planet. Helping him write this book has been one of the honors of my career and the result is nothing short of profound.

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When Will Smith was eleven years old, his father decided he needed a new wall on the front of his shop. The laying of this wall, brick by brick, would come to define a large part of Will’s life. Learn how in this free chapter from the bestselling memoir.

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What People Are Saying

Praise for ‘will’.

Many people can live a really fantastic life. Many people can write a great book. There are few people I think who can translate a fantastic life into a fantastic book…. It’s raw… one of the most anticipated yet unexpected memoirs that has ever come out.

It shows every high, every low, and the sheer will it took you to become who you are… I love the book. It’s fantastic.

This book doesn’t waste any time… Like a lot of families, mine included, we talk about nothing. You took the carpet, you shook it, you beat it with a broom, you let it all out. … The book is so good.

Will is not just a gift for the reader but an absolutely entertaining treat as well… It’s filled with laugh out loud, nostalgic references alongside poignant, powerful, relatable life and career lessons. … While we often think of leaders as successful, powerful… and oftentimes rich, Smith reminds us that the best leaders are really vulnerable, relatable and teachable.

Will Smith isn’t holding back in his bravely inspiring new memoir… An ultimately heartwarming read, Will provides a humane glimpse of the man behind the actor, producer and musician, as he bares all his insecurities and trauma.

The real Smith, the one that yells, cries, experiences heartbreak, is much more interesting. Early on, his act gives way to images of unhealthy relationship patterns marked by people pleasing and insecurity. Elsewhere, Will rewards music fans with memories of hip-hop’s early days, when getting a song played on the radio was a crowning achievement and selling rap albums was almost inconceivable.

About the Book

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned.

Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had. Will Smith’s transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest pop stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it’s only half the story.

Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn’t see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn’t signed up for. It turned out Will Smith’s education wasn’t nearly over.

This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck , Will is the story of how one exceptional man mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same.

Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world’s biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.

International Editions

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Download a free chapter of Will, Will Smith’s #1 bestselling memoir

The Oscar success of King Richard was overshadowed by Will Smith’s violent outburst on live television during the awards ceremony. Presenter Chris Rock saw Smith and Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith , near the stage and joked about looking forward to seeing “G.I. Jane II,” a mocking reference to Pinkett Smith’s shaved head (shave because of a medical condition). After first laughing at the joke, Smith walked up to the stage and hit Rock in the mouth, then returned to his seat and shouted obscenities while the cameras rolled. Rock maintained his composure and carried on as the audience reacted with confusion. Less than an hour later, Smith gave a rambling, emotional acceptance speech as best actor while the crowd sat silent for the duration… Smith was married to Sheree Zampino from 1992 until their divorce in 1995. They have one son, Willard Smith III (called “Trey”), born in 1992. Will Smith then married actress Jada Pinkett on New Year’s Eve in 1997; they have two children, son Jaden (born 1998) and daughter Willow (born 2000).

• The Official Will Smith Website Keeping up with his career in music and films
• Will Smith & Jazzy Jeff Fan Site Unofficial but impressive site from his old days as a pop star
• Buzzfeed Interview: Will Smith and the Cast of 'King Richard' From 2021, a good long chat about what became his Oscar-nominated role
• Will Smith Filmography The IMDB's full history of his film on the big (and small) screen
• Will Smith Biography

Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

Copyright © 1998-2018 by Who2? , LLC. All rights reserved.

• Born June 8 , 1971 · Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK
• Will Smith was born in 1971. He was brought up in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Beginning as a stand-up comedian he won Time Out's Comedy award for 2004 and Chortle's Best headliner for 2005. For several seasons he has also been a popular regular at the Edinburgh Fringe and in 2007 supported Ricky Gervais on his Fame tour. As a writer he has contributed to the satirical political sitcom 'The Thick of It', in which he also acts and the American TV satire 'Veep'. - IMDb Mini Biography By: don @ minifie-1
• Relatives Olly Smith (Sibling)
• His teenage devotion to the prog-rock band Marillion in the 1980s inspired his 2005 tour "Misplaced Childhood" (named after their 1985 number-one album).
• He is the brother of broadcaster and wine expert Olly Smith .
• He presented Marillion with the "UK Band of the Year" award at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards in London.
• His favourite albums are "Clutching at Straws" by Marillion , "Into The Great Wide Open" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Lucky Town" by Bruce Springsteen , "The Unforgettable Fire" by U2 and "Bringing It All Back Home" by Bob Dylan .

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