American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman Jada Koren Pinkett Smith

Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured opposite Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996). She starred in dramatic films such as Menace II Society (1993) and Set It Off (1996). She has appeared in more than 20 films in a variety of genres, including Scream 2, Ali, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Madagascar and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Pinkett Smith launched her music career in 2005, when she helped create the Heavy metal/rock band Wicked Wisdom, for which she is a singer and songwriter. Smith also created a production company and a makeover line, as well as authoring a book, published in 2000.

In 1997, she married rapper and actor Will Smith; they have two children, Jaden and Willow. Pinkett Smith is the stepmother to Smith's son from a previous marriage, Willard "Trey" Smith III. Together, the couple have founded the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, a charity organization which focuses on urban inner city youth and family support. The foundation has worked with non-profit organizations, such as YouthBuild and the Lupus Foundation of America.

Mini Bio Data: 

Born Jada Koren Pinkett

September 18, 1971 (age 40)

Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.

Other names Jada Koren (with Wicked Wisdom)

Occupation actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman

Years active 1990–present (actress)

2002–present (singer)

Spouse Will Smith (1997–present)

Children Willow Smith (b. 2000)

Jaden Smith (b. 1998)

Trey Smith (stepson, b. 1992)

Family and early life:

Jada Pinkett Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and named after her mother's favorite soap opera actress, Jada Rowland. Pinkett-Smith is of West Indian, Creole, and Portuguese-Jewish ancestry. Her parents are Adrienne Banfield-Jones, the head nurse of an inner-city clinic in Baltimore; and Robsol Pinkett, Jr., who ran a construction company. Banfield-Jones became pregnant in high school. The couple married but divorced after several months. Banfield-Jones raised Pinkett with the help of her mother, Marion Martin Banfield, who was employed as a social worker. Banfield noticed her granddaughter's passion for the performing arts and enrolled her in piano, tap dance, and ballet lessons. She has a younger half-brother, actor/writer Caleeb Pinkett.

Pinkett Smith has remained close to her mother and said, "A mother and daughter's relationship is usually the most honest, and we are so close." She participated as the maid of honor in Banfield-Jones' 1998 wedding to telecommunications executive Paul Jones. Pinkett-Smith has shown great admiration for her grandmother, saying, "My grandmother was a doer who wanted to create a better community and add beauty to the world."

Pinkett Smith majored in dance and theatre at the Baltimore School for the Arts, graduating in 1989. She continued her education at the North Carolina School of the Arts, but dropped out after a year. She moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career.