Dwayne Wayne (also known as Dwayne Cleophus Wayne) is one of the major characters on A Different World.
He is an alumnus of Hillman College where he was a math tutor, member of the baseball & track team and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.
About Dwayne[]
Dwayne is from Brooklyn, New York where he was raised in a working class family. He is the only child of Adele Wayne and Woodson Wayne.
He had a crush on Denise Huxtable and unsuccessfully ran for the title of "Miss Hillman" at her urging to highlight the sexism of the pageant.
His best friend/roommate is Ron Johnson. He used to date Suzanne Taylor, but they later broke up because she was not ready to get serious.
Although he dated several women across the series, Dwayne was most involved in an on-again-off-again relationship with Whitley Gilbert throughout the series.
After working at a summer internship in Japan, Dwayne began a relationship with a girl name Kinu Owens, but he broke up with her once he realized he was still in love with Whitley.
During his senior year, Dwayne was given a job offer to work at Kinishewa Electronics, but turned it down so he could attend graduate school at Hillman. He graduated from Hillman in 1991 as the valedictorian. He would later become a Calculus professor at the school.
Dwayne was engaged to Whitley, but it ended after he almost cheated on her. However, during Whitley's relationship with Byron Douglas III, the two of them slept together and he interrupted Whitley & Byron's wedding ceremony to declare his love for her.
Whitley left Byron at the altar for Dwayne and the two of them got married. They spent their honeymoon in Los Angeles (which coincided with the 1992 riots following the verdict in the Rodney King trial).
Towards the end of the series, Dwayne designed a grammar-baseball video game for Kinishewa Electronics and is offered a job in Tokyo. It is also revealed that Whitley is pregnant with their first child. In the end, he and Whitley move to Japan for Dwayne's work.
Characteristics[]
Dwayne was goofy, nerdy, and known for his characteristic flip-up glasses and for his sense of flirting with girls on Hillman College's campus. He was an excellent math student, tutor and teacher throughout the series.
Throughout the series, Dwayne matured from a flirtatious wanna-be ladies’ man to a mature and respectable husband.
Trivia[]
- Dwayne received a perfect score on his Math SAT (a fact which he constantly reminds others, and uses as a pickup line).
- In a reunion special, it was revealed that while working at Kinishewa, Dwayne invented the flip cell phone (which was inspired by his flip glasses).