A rapper who owed the taxman
In the late 1980s WILL SMITH was a young rapper from Philadelphia who performed as the FRESH PRINCE with his friend Jazzy Jeff. In 1989 they won the first ever Grammy award for a rap performance. He spent his money quickly, though, and ended up owing a large tax bill. At a birthday party for the music producer Quincy Jones, he was asked to audition for a new sitcom on the spot, read for the part in the living room, and got it.
The show was based loosely on the life of a music businessman, Benny Medina, who had grown up poor in Los Angeles and been taken in by a wealthy family in Beverly Hills. The Fresh Prince of BEL AIR ran from 1990 to 1996, six series and 148 episodes, and it made Will Smith one of the biggest stars in the world. Our hip-hop page covers the music he started in.
He had never acted before, and it showed at first: he learned the whole script, not just his own part, and in the first episode you can spot him silently mouthing the other actors' lines along with them. His character even kept his real name.
Born and raised in West Philadelphia
The famous theme song, rapped by Will Smith himself, tells the whole set-up in about a minute: a teenager from WEST PHILLY gets into one little fight, and his worried mother sends him to live with his rich AUNT and UNCLE PHIL in their MANSION in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Many people who watched the show in the 1990s can still rap every word.
The house seen from the outside is a real mansion in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. In 2020, to mark the show's thirtieth anniversary, it was offered for a few nights on a holiday rental website, with Jazzy Jeff as the host, and fans could book to stay there.
The Carlton
Will's COUSIN CARLTON BANKS is the show's other big character, a preppy, rule-following boy who adores the singer Tom Jones. His joyful dance to It's Not Unusual became one of the most famous dances on television, still copied at weddings and parties decades later. The actor Alfonso Ribeiro has said he based it on Courteney Cox's dancing in a Bruce Springsteen music video and on a routine by the comedian Eddie Murphy.
James Avery, who played the stern but loving Uncle Phil, was also the voice of Shredder in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Aunt VIVIAN was played by two actors, Janet Hubert and then Daphne Maxwell Reid, who took over from the fourth series. HILARY, the spoiled eldest daughter, ASHLEY, the youngest, baby NICKY and GEOFFREY, the dry-witted British BUTLER, complete the household, and JAZZ, Will's friend who keeps getting thrown out of the house, was played by Jazzy Jeff himself.
Reunions and a remake
The cast came together for an unscripted reunion in 2020, and in 2022 a new drama called Bel-Air retold the same story with serious, modern storylines. It began as a fan-made trailer posted online, which was so good that Will Smith helped turn it into a real series, and the old show's theme appears in it reworked. The original is still repeated around the world, and the Carlton DANCE still turns up on social media every few months.