(CBS) But not without some turbulence: at age 18, he was earning more money than he knew what to do with, and he spent it just like a teenager.

"I had a hit single on the radio for 30 days before I graduated from high school. And that's dangerous," Smith says, laughing. "You don't want to have a hit record on the radio when you're in high school."

"Dangerous in what way?" Kroft asks.

"It just seemed easy," Smith explains.

That's when he was 18.

"The tide turned somewhat at 19. The IRS came and took all my stuff," Smith says, laughing. "They were talkin' about I didn't send them no money, you know. And I mean, I didn't but I just didn't think it didn't need to be such a big issue."

How much did they want?

"I think -- I was-- it said 2.8 or something like that," Smith recalls.

"How much did you have?" Kroft asks.

"I had $2.83," Smith says, laughing.

"So, you went through five, six million dollars?" Kroft asks.

"Probably, yeah," Smith admits.

Asked if he had fun, Smith tells Kroft, "Oh, I had a really, really good time. It was the best blown money ever."

But it didn't take long for another opportunity to present itself. After moving to Los Angeles, Smith caught the attention of music mogul Quincy Jones, who thought NBC could build a TV show around the rapper.

"And no one ever thought to ask me if I could act," Smith says, laughing.

Smith says he didn't even have to perform at an audition. "The first time that I performed as an actor was the first day on the set of 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,'" he recalls.

"NBC must have been desperate," Kroft remarks.

"Yeah," Smith says, laughing.

The idea was simple enough: an inner city kid goes to live with his rich relatives in Bel-Air, Calif. It was an instant hit, and what Smith lacked in experience, he made up for with hard work.

"You can look at the first six episodes of The Fresh Prince and I was so just hell bent on not failing that I memorized the entire script. And you can see in certain shots they tried to cut around it as much as they can, but I am mouthing the other actor's lines," Smith explains, laughing.

"It took six episodes for someone to tell me to stop doin' it. So then the next six episodes look like, 'Ah, come on, Uncle Phil,'" Smith says, laughing. "So I got it together, though. From midway through the first season I got it together."

For the first three years of the show show's six year run, the IRS would take 70 percent of Smith’s paycheck. By the time he got back to even with Uncle Sam, he was already plotting on his next career.

Produced By John Hamlin and Albert Kahwaty
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