Tavis Smiley
| Tavis Smiley | |
|---|---|
Tavis Smiley at the 2014 Texas Book Festival.
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| Born |
September 13, 1964 Gulfport, Mississippi, United States |
| Education | Indiana University (B.A., public affairs, 2003) Maconaquah High School |
| Occupation | Talk show host, author, entrepreneur, advocate, philanthropist |
| Years active | 1991–present |
| Notable credit(s) |
Tavis Smiley host (2004–present) The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI (radio) host (2005–present) Smiley & West co-host (2010–2013) BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley host (1996–2001) |
| Website | tavistalks |
Tavis Smiley (/ˈtævᵻs/; born September 13, 1964) is an American talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, and advocate. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991, and starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight) on BET. After Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew Smiley's contract that year. Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR (2002–04) and currently hosts Tavis Smiley on PBS on the weekdays and The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI. From 2010 to 2013, Smiley and Cornel West joined forces to host their own radio talk show, Smiley & West. They were featured together interviewing musician Bill Withers in the 2009 documentary film Still Bill. He is the new host of Tavis Talks on BlogTalkRadio's Tavis Smiley Network.
Tavis Smiley was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Joyce Marie Roberts, a single woman who first became pregnant at age 18. On September 13, 1966, his second birthday, his mother married Emory Garnell Smiley, a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. It would not be until a few years later that Tavis would learn the identity of his biological father, whom he identifies in his autobiography, What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America, only as "T".
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