The table was set for a moment of family triumph. Venus and Serena Williams were dressed and seated for the grand occasion on Sunday night, and Will Smith, who had played their father Richard with uncanny similitude in the movie “King Richard,” was poised to win the Oscar for best actor.
But then, as so often happens with the Williamses, things got complicated — and, through no fault of the sisters, an evening that should have affirmed their against-great-odds rise to stardom instead became about Smith slapping the comedian Chris Rock onstage.
When Smith accepted the Oscar, he delivered a tearful, rambling, semi-apologetic speech in which he said that “art imitates life” and “I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams.