Jada Pinkett Smith life and biography

Jada Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured opposite Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996). She starred in dramatic films such as Menace II Society (1993) and Set It Off (1996). She has appeared in more than 20 films in a variety of genres, including Scream 2, Ali, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Madagascar and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Pinkett Smith launched her music career in 2005, when she helped create the Heavy metal/rock band Wicked Wisdom, for which she is a singer and songwriter. Smith also created a production company and a makeover line, as well as authoring a book, published in 2000.

In 1997, she married rapper and actor Will Smith; they have two children, Jaden and Willow. Pinkett Smith is the stepmother to Smith's son from a previous marriage, Willard "Trey" Smith III. Together, the couple have founded the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, a charity organization which focuses on urban inner city youth and family support. The foundation has worked with non-profit organizations, such as YouthBuild and the Lupus Foundation of America.

Jada Pinkett Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and named after her mother's favorite soap opera actress, Jada Rowland. Pinkett-Smith is of African-American, Portuguese-Jewish, West Indian, and Creole ancestry. Her parents are Adrienne Banfield-Jones, the head nurse of an inner-city clinic in Baltimore; and Robsol Pinkett, Jr., who ran a construction company. Banfield-Jones became pregnant in high school. The couple married but divorced after several months. Banfield-Jones raised Pinkett with the help of her mother, Marion Martin Banfield, who was employed as a social worker. Banfield noticed her granddaughter's passion for the performing arts and enrolled her in piano, tap dance, and ballet lessons. She has a younger half-brother, actor/writer Caleeb Pinkett.

Pinkett Smith met Will Smith in 1990 on the set of Smith's television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, when she auditioned for the role of his character's girlfriend, Lisa Wilkes. She was considered too short and the role went to actress Nia Long. Pinkett and Smith became friends, however, and began dating in 1995. On December 31, 1997, about 100 guests attended their wedding at the Cloisters, near her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.

Filmography:
2003: The Matrix Reloaded; The Matrix Revolutions
2008: The Women; Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa; The Human Contract

Television:
2009-present: Hawthorne

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