Will Smith originally named Willard Christopher Smith Jr.; was born in the year 1968 in West Philadelphia. Often referred to as one of the most powerful actor, Will Smith apart from being one of the most successful actor is a very well established rapper and a film producer. He has been nominated to innumerable Golden Globe and Academy awards and is the winner of numerous Grammy awards for his singing talent.
Will Smith started as a musician; rapper called The Fresh Prince was born to normal middle class working parent who separated when he was aged 13 and finally divorced when Will was around 32 years old. Wills father who was a refrigeration engineer and mother a school administrator wanted Will to become an Engineer, but Will never attended college.
Acknowledged for his performances in movies like Men in Black, In Pursuit of Happiness, Hancock, Seven Pounds etc, the list is endless; he came into recognition with performances in television series the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Will started his music career with e DJ friend known as DJ Jazzy Jeff and both of them combined and collaborated to form a group called ‘DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’. The group wan their first Grammy in the rap category in the year 1988, when Will was all but 20 years old.
Will was in a complete financial mess in 1990 when he took up acting in the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which kick started his acting career making him one of the biggest and the most respected actors of Hollywood. Will has the distinction of being the only rap star to have been nominated for two Oscar awards for an acting category for his role in the movies, Mohammad Ali and in Pursuit of Happiness and is the only actor accredited with the distinction of having eight consecutive and successful movies which have grossed over $100 millions in revenues.
Married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith, Will is father to three children, one from his first wife, Sheree Zampino and two from his present wife Jada. In the past few years Will has been synonymous with releasing popular music singles based around his films. Will has been a consistent feature in Forbes ‘Richest 40’ list which lists forty wealthiest Americans who are under the age of 40.
‘Made in America’ was the first movie that will had done, his co actors being Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson. Will got wide spread acclaim for his role in the movie ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ and made him into a hotshot world renowned movie star. Apart from being a successful singer and an actor, Will is now also a very well know movie producer. His company Overbook Entertainment, apart from producing numerous successful movies at the box office also promotes new talent in the industry. The company has been at the back of producing some of the best performing movies of the recent times called ‘In Pursuit of Happiness’ ‘Hitch’ and ‘I, Robot’ which incidentally also had Will in the lead roles.
