Roger Guenveur Smith
*Roger Guenveur Smith was born on this date in 1955. He is a Black actor, director, and writer.
Roger Guenveur Smith was born in Berkeley, California, and was the son of Helen Guenveur, a dentist, and Sherman Smith, a judge. He attended Loyola High School in Los Angeles and graduated from Occidental College (American Studies) in Los Angeles. He then studied at Yale University, where he successfully auditioned for the Drama School and switched his pursuit of a graduate degree in history. Additionally, Smith studied at the Keskidee Arts Centre in London, England.
As an actor for television during the 1990s, he had a recurring role in A Different World. In 1996, he starred in the self-written and produced A Huey P. Newton Story, a one-man theatre performance based on the life of Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton. Smith received an Obie Award, and the performance was later filmed by Spike Lee and released in 2001. He has appeared in the films School Daze, Do the Right Thing, King of New York, Panther, Malcolm X, Poetic Justice, Get on the Bus, Eve's Bayou, He Got Game, and Summer of Sam. Several of these films were with director Spike Lee.
In addition to his performances in major studio productions, Smith continues to work in and support independent film projects. In 2003, he had a starring role in the TV series K-Street. Also in 2003, Smith read in the documentary Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives; the film, based on interviews conducted by the WPA in the 1930s with formerly enslaved African Americans, is a compilation of slave narratives with actors emulating the original conversation with the interviewer. Smith was also the voice of Bao-Dur in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords. In the martial arts/crime film Fist of the Warrior, he portrayed a corrupt detective. Smith starred in the 1992 film Deep Cover. He also played a villain in All About the Benjamins (2002) with Ice Cube.
In 2000, Smith was in the first installment of the Final Destination horror film. 2006, he played the main villain in the straight-to-video action series Mercenary for Justice. Smith was in the 2007 film American Gangster and the 2016 film The Birth of a Nation. He also had a recurring role in the hit HBO series Oz. As a playwright, Juan and John, written and performed by Guenveur Smith, is based on baseball's most famous fight, which traumatized him as a child. He portrayed Booker T. Washington in the 2020 miniseries Self Made. Smith wrote, directed, and performed the solo show In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a tribute to Basquiat, a friend.
Smith works and resides in Los Angeles, California, and New York City. He is divorced from Carolina Smith, the mother of his adult daughter. He and his wife, LeTania Kirkland Smith, have three children.
