Background and career
Clifton Powell is an American actor and comedian who has primarily played supporting roles in films, such as in Ray (2004), for which he received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture nomination. He is also known for voicing Melvin "Big Smoke" Harris in the action-adventure game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
Powell had a string of critical and commercial successes in the 1990s and early 2000s. These films include House Party (1990), Menace II Society (1993), Dead Presidents (1995), Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Rush Hour (both 1998), Selma, Lord, Selma (1999), Next Friday (2000), and its 2002 sequel, Friday After Next, Woman Thou Art Loosed (2004), and Ray (2004). He was initially cast in a supporting role in the Eddie Murphy-led film Vampire in Brooklyn, (1995) but abruptly quit the movie after an unnamed sound operator was allegedly racist toward him and the film's producers - who were informed about the incident - chose not to do anything about it. A decade later, Murphy went on to cast Powell in a supporting role in the box office hit Norbit. (2007) Around that time in the mid 2000s and continuing for the next two decades, Powell transitioned to working on many smaller, low budget, direct-to-video films as well as appearing in small guest roles on television shows. Powell had recurring roles on Roc, South Central, and Army Wives, and well as guest-starred on In the Heat of the Night, Murder, She Wrote, NYPD Blue, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and House. In 2016, Powell was cast as main antagonist in the Bounce TV first prime time soap opera, Saints & Sinners opposite Vanessa Bell Calloway and Gloria Reuben. Powell also lent his voice for Big Smoke in the action-adventure game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
Powell was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Mayfair Mansions in Northeast D.C. He attended HD Woodson Senior High School, before he transferred and graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Powell is married to Kimberly, with whom he has two children.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
