Rise to Fame
He made his Broadway debut at 12 in The Tap Dance Kid (1983), good enough to earn an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination. But it was Carlton Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that cemented him. The Carlton dance, built from Courteney Cox's moment in the Bruce Springsteen "Dancing in the Dark" video and Eddie Murphy's "white man dance," started as a character quirk and ended up outlasting the show entirely. He's said the role was "the greatest and worst thing that ever happened" to him.
In the Spotlight
He's been hosting America's Funniest Home Videos since 2015, now in his 11th season. The Carlton followed him into the legal system when he sued Epic Games in 2018, claiming Fortnite sold his dance as an emote called "Fresh." The U.S. Copyright Office called the Carlton "a simple routine made up of three dance steps," denied the copyright registration, and he dropped the lawsuit. He now co-hosts Dancing with the Stars alongside Julianne Hough. Carlton defined his persona for decades. Hosting has become the actual career.
Side Notes
Performance runs in the family. His grandfather, Albert Ribeiro, was a Trinidadian calypso musician known as Lord Hummingbird. His aunt danced on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Ribeiro himself started performing at 8 and was on Broadway at 12, then turned up in a Pepsi commercial with Michael Jackson in 1984, a gig that somehow generated a rumor that he'd snapped his neck dancing. He didn't.