Page 41 - Will Smith: A Biography of a Rapper Turned Movie Star

From Rapper to Actor
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came out of one of the poorest and toughest neighborhoods
in Los Angeles. It is an area called Watts, where drugs and
gang violence are part of daily life.
Medina went through many steps to make his idea come
true. First, he had to find a producer—someone to supervise
and provide the money—for his television program. Medina
knew just the person to speak to. He approached Quincy
Jones, who knew all sorts of important people in the
entertainment business. First, Medina had to convince Jones
that his idea was a good one.
That was not a problem. Jones liked the concept and
thought Smith would be perfect for the role. As Jones
and Medina spoke, they decided to twist the premise of
the proposed show. Instead of a wealthy white family,
they decided to feature a well-to-do African-American
one. Medina recalled a rich African-American family
who lived near the Elliots in Beverly Hills. He said,
“There was no relationship between what I considered
to be the black experience and what they considered the
black experience in America. It was like two completely
different cultures.”1
It was also decided that Smith’s character would be a
relative, rather than a foster child. He would play a
cousin from Philadelphia on the verge of getting into
trouble. He would be shuttled off to live with a wealthy
and successful branch of the family in the hopes that
their good influence would rub off on the troubled teen
and straighten him out.