Roger Guenveur Smith

Roger Guenveur Smith (born July 27, 1955)^[1] is an American actor, director, and writer.^[2]

Early life

Smith was born in 1955 in Berkeley, California, the son of Helen Guenveur, a dentist, and Sherman Smith, a judge. He attended Occidental College (American Studies) in Los Angeles and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he successfully auditioned for the Drama School, switching from his pursuit of a graduate degree in History. Additionally, Smith studied at the Keskidee Arts Centre in London, England.

Career

In film, Smith has collaborated with Spike Lee on several works. He has appeared in films such as School Daze,^[2] Do the Right Thing,^[2] King of New York, Deep Cover, Panther, Malcolm X, Poetic Justice, Get On The Bus, Eve's Bayou, He Got Game, and Summer of Sam. During the 1990s, he had a recurring role on 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, for which Smith received an Obie Award, a performance was later filmed by Spike Lee and released in 2001.

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 Steven Soderbergh/George Clooney TV series K-Street on HBO. Also in 2003, Smith read in the HBO 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. He portrayed a corrupt detective in the martial arts/crime film Fist of the Warrior, alongside Ho-Sung Pak and Sherilyn Fenn. Smith starred with Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum in the 1992 film Deep Cover. He also played a villain in All About the Benjamins (2002) with Ice Cube. In 2006, he played the main villain in the straight-to-video actioner Mercenary for Justice, opposite Steven Seagal. Smith's latest major role was in the 2007 film American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, in which he played the role of "Nate", Frank Lucas's army connection in Vietnam. Smith also had a recurring role in the hit HBO series Oz.

Juan and John, written and performed by Guenveur Smith, is based on baseball's most famous fight--San Francisco Giants pitcher Juan Marichal clubbing Johnny Roseboro of the Los Angeles Dodgers with his bat during a 1965 battle for the pennant at Candlestick Park—which traumatized the playwright as a child.^[3]

Filmography

• School Daze
• Do the Right Thing
• King of New York
• Deep Cover
• Panther
• Malcom X
• Poetic Justice
• Get on The Bus
• Eve''e Bayou
• He Got Game
• Summer of Sam

Rodney King

In 2014, Roger Gunver Smith produces play, ‘Rodney King,’ A Whispered Evocation of the L.A. Riots. On Father’s Day 2012, Roger was at home in Los Angeles working on a show about the dad of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank when he popped open his laptop to news that stunned him. The lifeless body of Rodney King, a semiliterate construction worker who unexpectedly became a byword for racial tumult after his 1991 videotaped beating by white L.A. police officers, had been found at the bottom of his backyard pool. “I felt as if I’d lost a blood brother,” said Smith. He shelved his other projects and plunged into research about King. “I wanted to know why he mattered so much to me, and in such a personal way.”

Personal life

Smith works and resides in Los Angeles, California. He also resides in New York City. He is divorced from Carolina Smith, the mother of his adult daughter. He and his partner, LeTania Kirkland, have three small children. ^[4]

References

External links

• Roger Guenveur Smith at the Internet Movie Database
• Roger Guenveur Smith at AllMovie