• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 9, 2022

The story of how Will Smith migrated from West Philadelphia to Hollywood was first told in the 1990s in the form of a sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

Now the story is presented once again, adapted for a drama called “Bel-Air,” premiering on NBCU’s Peacock streaming service on Sunday.

Unsurprisingly, the sitcom and the drama differ like night and day, but they have one important thing in common: The story they tell apparently never happened.

I went in search of the story of how Smith was supposedly “saved” from the streets of Philadelphia when he was invited to live in Bel Air, California, by a wealthy aunt and uncle.

According to this narrative, his move to southern California set the stage for his career as a rapper and then a movie star.

But no biography that I found online makes any mention of this story, other than that it forms the basis of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and more recently, “Bel-Air.”

On the other hand, scripted TV is not exactly a place one goes in search of historical or biographical truth.

And true or not, the story of how a charismatic teenage boy from a tough inner-city neighborhood suddenly received an opportunity to reside in a huge, oversized mansion in one of the nation’s wealthiest enclaves is not a bad story at all.

It was good enough for the sitcom to run for six seasons on NBC. And now the same company believes the story still has enough juice to power a new drama for NBCU-owned Peacock.

Trivia buffs will please note that the principal characters who were first introduced to us in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” are the same ones here, but in name only -- patriarch Philip Banks, aunt Vivian, cousins Carlton, Ashley and Hilary, and house manager/butler Geoffrey.

It should go without saying, but none of the “Fresh Prince” cast members are on hand for “Bel-Air,” especially Will Smith himself, who nevertheless serves as executive producer of the new show.  

Since the Will character is the central figure in the show, the young actor who plays him, Jabari Banks (no relation to the fictional Bankses), is front and center in every scene

In the series’ first episode that I previewed this week, Jabari (above photo, left) is called upon to take the lead in a variety of dramatic scenes, including one where the young Will has a run-in with a gangbanger and is then arrested for possessing a handgun of his own.

It is a very good bet that no incident like this one ever occurred in the life of Will Smith.

By all accounts, he was a well-liked and very smart teen who graduated from West Philadelphia’s Overbrook High in 1986, by which time he had already had his first rap hit, “Girls Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble.”

In addition, the new “Bel-Air” is set in the present day, not the 1980s and ’90s -- a creative choice that serves to remove any doubt that this new show is a pretty well-fictionalized version of the Will Smith story.

“Bel-Air” starts streaming on Sunday (February 13) on Peacock.