Will Smith - Family and Early Life

Family and Early Life

Born in West Philadelphia, Smith also lived in Germantown in Northwest Philadelphia. His mother, Caroline (née Bright), was a school administrator who worked for the Philadelphia school board, and his father, Willard Christopher Smith, Sr., was a refrigeration engineer. He was raised Baptist. His parents separated when he was thirteen, and did not actually divorce until around 2000.

It is untrue, though widely reported, that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he never applied to the school, although he was admitted to a "pre-engineering program" there. According to Smith, "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."

Read more about this topic:  Will Smith

Famous quotes containing the words family and, family, early and/or life:

    Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one’s family and affairs.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    Children need money. As they grow older they need more money. They need money for essentially the same reasons that adults need money. They need to buy stuff....They need it regardless of whether they get good grades, violate a family rule, or offend a parent.
    Donald C. Medeiros (20th century)

    Very early in our children’s lives we will be forced to realize that the “perfect” untroubled life we’d like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don’t want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.
    Fred Rogers (20th century)

    City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind’s eye the notion of a better life ahead.
    Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)