More than 30 years after James Avery gave her dolls that looked like her, the “Fresh Prince” actress returned the honor on national television, with her former TV brother at her side.
By EEW Magazine Online Entertainment Editors
James Avery and Tatyana Ali on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (Photo: Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank)
Scripture instructs believers to give everyone what they owe them: “if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor” (Romans 13:7, NIV). On Oct. 20, Tatyana Ali paid a debt of honor more than 30 years in the making. On ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, the actress dedicated her performance to James Avery, the man who played her father on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Every holiday on that set, he gave her a baby doll that looked like her, telling the young actress he wanted her to see her own beauty. Ali was 11 when they met. Her former TV brother, Alfonso Ribeiro, joined her on the ballroom floor to finish the tribute.
The dance came on Dedication Night, when contestants honor the people who shaped their lives. Ali, 47, and professional partner Jan Ravnik performed a Viennese waltz to Nancy Wilson’s “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am,” with Ali recording the vocals herself. Wilson was one of Avery’s favorite singers. Midway through, Ribeiro, now the show’s co-host, stepped in for Ravnik and finished the dance with Ali as a photograph of Avery appeared on screen. The judges scored the routine 32 out of 40.
Alfonso Ribeiro joins his former TV sister Tatyana Ali for her Viennese waltz honoring James Avery on the Oct. 20 Dedication Night episode of Dancing With the Stars. (Photo: Eric McCandless/Disney)
Avery played the Banks family patriarch on the NBC sitcom from 1990 to 1996 and died in December 2013 at 68, after complications from open-heart surgery. Ali has called him a father figure to the young cast. In a video posted before the performance, she said he introduced her to artists he thought she should know and taught her to see acting as a contribution to a long tradition of storytelling. Her costume drew on Eartha Kitt, the entertainer Avery often compared her to.
Ali told People she “wouldn’t be who I am today, as a performer, as a woman” without Avery in her life. Ribeiro, 55, called the routine an opportunity to thank the man who mentored them both. He later admitted he was nervous, having never danced a Viennese waltz, because he wanted to be great for her and for Avery.
Ali and Ravnik returned Oct. 27 for Horror Movie Night with a paso doble to Miles Caton’s “I Lied to You,” inspired by Sinners, and advanced past the night’s double elimination. Disney Night is next.
The honor reached Avery’s family before it reached the ballroom. Ali told Us Weekly she called his widow, Barbara, to walk her through the tribute and would not have gone forward without speaking to her first. After the dance, Ali thanked Avery’s family publicly and said she hoped he was proud. Ribeiro said the two of them heard from the family afterward.