Roger Guenveur Smith
#194863 Most Popular
About
American actor, director, and writer best known for his collaborations with Spike Lee. He has won an Obie, a Peabody, and a Bessie. He has written and performed solo performance pieces centered around iconic figures such as Christopher Columbus, Frederick Douglass, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Before Fame
He attended Loyola High School in Los Angeles, He earned a BA from Occidental College in Los Angeles and then an MFA from the Yale University School of Drama, where his classmates included Angela Bassett, Charles Dutton, and John Turturro.
Trivia
His 2001 solo performance piece "A Huey P. Newton Story" was filmed by Spike Lee, and earned him a Peabody award. In 2018, Spike Lee filmed his performance piece focusing on Rodney King. He has done more films with Lee than any other actor. His longtime musical collaborator is Marc Anthony Thompson, father of Tessa Thompson.
Family Life
He was born in Berkeley, California. His father was a judge and his mother a dentist. He is divorced from Carolina Smith, the mother of his adult daughter. He and his wife LeTania Kirkland Smith have three children and split their time between Los Angeles and New York.
Associated With
He has made movies with Denzel Washington, Tyson Beckford, and Steven Seagal, among many others. He has also appeared on various TV and streaming series, including the Steven Soderbergh-George Clooney HBO series K-Street. He played Booker T. Washington in the Netflix series Self Made, starring Octavia Spencer.
