Roger Guenveur Smith

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Roger Guenevere Smith (2014)

Roger Guenveur Smith (born July 27, 1955 in Berkeley , California ) is an American actor and author .

life and career

Roger Guenveur Smith was born the son of a dentist and a judge in Berkeley, California. He originally studied history at Yale University , but then switched to the university's acting course. He took further acting classes at the Keskidee Center in London. Smith is African American , but has a comparatively light skin color, which is also reflected in his roles in a certain ambiguity . To this day, he often plays very controversial or political roles that deal with the issue of racism in the USA.

Smith was best known for his longstanding collaboration with director Spike Lee , whose debut film School Daze was also Smith's first film appearance. He was best known in 1989 for the supporting role of the stuttering beggar, who sells pictures of Afro-American heroes, in Lee's classic film Do the Right Thing . Smith then appeared in front of the camera for other films by Lee, including the successful film biography Malcom X (1992) and most recently in 2015 for Chi-Raq . Smith still plays predominantly in independent films, with one exception being Ridley Scott's blockbuster American Gangster from 2007. He rarely appeared in television roles - one exception was one of the leading roles in the HBO television series K Street, produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney .

In addition to his film career, Smith continues to work as a stage actor and has written several plays himself - for example Juan and John , which deals with the dispute between the baseball players Juan Marichal and John Roseboro . In 2001, Spike Lee filmed the one-man play A Huey P. Newton Story , written by Roger Guenveur Smith himself : Smith also played the Black Panther co- founder Huey Newton in the film . The texts of the play were retained in Lee's film adaptation, but interspersed with cinematic means - the film was a commercial failure and only found a very limited audience. Nevertheless, Lee filmed another one-man piece by Smith for the big screen with Rodney King in 2017, and a third joint film project - about Frederick Douglass - is planned in the near future.

Roger Guenveur Smith is a second marriage and has four children. He lives in Los Angeles and New York City.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ What Would Thembi Do? »Blog Archive» Obscure Black C-List Actors: Roger Guenveur Smith. Retrieved February 1, 2019 (American English).
  2. ↑ Roger Guenveur Smith | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved February 1, 2019 (American English).
  3. ↑ Roger Guenveur Smith | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved February 1, 2019 (American English).
  4. ^ John Hopewell, John Hopewell: Spike Lee to Direct Roger Guenveur Smith's 'Frederick Douglass Now' (EXCLUSIVE). In: Variety. November 7, 2018, accessed February 1, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Roger Guenveur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Berkeley , California