If the 90s had a TV poster child for its shameless excess and unbridled confidence, her name would be Hilary Banks. From to , Karyn Parsons played The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air 's eldest Banks sibling who, much like the shopping malls she so loved to frequent, lived squarely in a void of shallow consumerism. Hilary Banks was the Gordon Gekko of Rodeo Drive and represented an American Dream in which even a privileged, valley -adjacent girl with no common sense could stumble into a career as a national talk show host. But in the years after Fresh Prince ended, Parsons' name recognition faded in a world still decades away from salivating over every morsel of 90s nostalgia. It was embarrassing. I'd feel like a moron, like, 'Oh, it was this show in the 90s. Now, this is a story all about how Karyn Parsons' post-sitcom life got flipped, turned upside down into one of advocacy, novels, and, yes, possibly reboots. While Parsons technically grew up less than eight miles from ritzy Bel-Air, her modest s and 80s upbringing was a far cry from that of the Banks children. Rather than being waited on by a live-in British butler, Parsons spent most of her youth moving to various "little apartments" around then-"hippie-ish" Santa Monica with her mom, a deputy-sheriff-turned-bra-and-swimsuit-model-turned-librarian, while her father was "mostly absent.
Smith admits to being a line-mimicker
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Parsons, who you may know as Hilary Banks from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," says her on-screen father James Avery Philip Banks always encouraged her and influenced her to follow through with an initiative like Sweet Blackberry, whose mission is "to bring little-known stories of African-American achievement to kids. Avery died last December at 68 years old after complications from open heart surgery and Parsons, 47, just wishes he could be around to see what she's accomplished. It's that closeness that Parsons, Avery and the rest of the "Fresh Prince" cast have for each other, even today, almost a decade after the show wrapped. Afterward, we hung out together. We all wanted to be together.
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Much of the special was devoted to walking the fans of the show through the process of making the show from Tuesday and Wednesday rehearsals, to tape nights on Fridays , as well as sharing fond memories from their time working together and featuring a surprise appearance by Ross Bagley, who played Nicky. In doing so, both in the roundtable setting and individual interview-style talking heads, the group was able to reflect on their experience, as well as the legacy of the show overall. But by having a Black family on-screen, millions of audience members around the world tuned in and saw themselves reflected — or tuned in and saw a Black family that was just like their own family. So I said no, I would not accept their offer. Carlton Banks was a notoriously preppy character. An affluent teenager attending private school in the ritzy Bel-Air sub-section of Los Angeles, he was known for button-down collared shirts and sweaters often knotted around his neck. But Ribeiro auditioned for the role wearing an Adidas track suit, a fact by which, when faced with the old footage during the reunion, he seemed baffled.
One of my earliest memories growing up was wanting a sister. It was always just my brother and me , and while I loved playing video games and making constant futile attempts to get him to play makeover, I still longed for a sister. My parents made it clear that there was zero hope for any more siblings, so I turned to those who I saw on TV. I wished Denise from A Different World would ignore me when she was home from school, imagined Clarissa and myself hanging out with Sam in her room, and sometimes pretended that Hilary Banks was my beautiful older sister whose closet I lived in. These are the first words Hilary Banks portrayed by actor, author, and producer Karyn Parsons says when she comes onto the screen of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , which premiered 20 years ago last month.
