Hollywood Child Stars

Emmanuel Lewis Filmography

Emmanuel Lewis began his career at the young age of nine, appearing in several regional and national television commercials. One of his first employers was Jell-O Pudding. He became an integral part of the successful ad campaign featuring comedian and industry veteran, Bill Cosby. He also starred in commercials for Colgate, Campbell’s Soup and Life Cereal. Lewis had already appeared in over 50 commercials when he was contacted by the famous franchise, Burger King, to do a series of national spots. His part in this particular campaign landed him a CLIO Award for Best Male Actor. After many commercials, Lewis landed his first non-commercial role in the Joseph Papp New York Shakespeare Festival Production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ where he played the part of the Changeling Boy.

Webster and Beyond
It was his series of Burger King commercials that landed Lewis the starring role in the 1980’s sitcom Webster, for which he is now acclaimed. Lewis was only 12-years-old when he began working on that show, and was 18-years-old when it went off the air. After the first season of Webster, Lewis’ agent renegotiated his contract, committing Lewis to five more seasons, and getting him a share of the profits and syndication fund. He has won three People’s Choice Awards for his work on Webster. Emmanuel Lewis is often likened to Gary Coleman of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ due to the fact that both stars are of small stature, and both starred in shows portraying an African-American child in a Caucasian family.

Throughout the 1990s, Emmanuel Lewis continued to work on various television and film projects. He procured guest spots on hit television shows, such as ‘Moesha’, ‘Malcolm & Eddie’ and ‘In the House’. Lewis has also made guest appearances on ‘The Tonight Show’ and ‘The Phil Donahue Show’. He has appeared in films such as 1985’s ‘Lost in London’ with Ben Vereen, ‘The New Adventures of Mother Goose Special’, and most recently, ‘Kickin’ It Old Skool’ with Jamie Kennedy and ‘Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star’ with David Spade.

Emmanuel Lewis, in reality…
Lewis has done his part for reality television, starring as a contestant in the once-popular game show ‘The Weakest Link’, and also appearing on the third installment of ‘The Surreal Life: Fame Games’, a spin-off of the popular VH1 reality show wherein former celebrities from the past six seasons compete against each other in a game-show format for $100,000.

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Biography