Lois Smith facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lois Smith
Smith in 2017
Born	Lois Arlene Humbert (1930-11-03) November 3, 1930 (age 94) Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1952–present
Spouse(s)	Wesley Smith ​ ​ (m. 1948; div. 1970)​
Children	1

Lois Arlene Smith (born November 3, 1930) is an American actress. She has had a very long career, acting for over 70 years! She started in movies in 1955 with East of Eden.

Lois Smith has been in many well-known films. Some of these include Five Easy Pieces (1970), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Twister (1996), and Minority Report (2002). More recently, she appeared in Lady Bird (2017) and The French Dispatch (2021).

In 2017, she was highly praised for her main role in the movie Marjorie Prime. For this film, she won a Satellite Award. She has also acted in many TV shows, both during the day and in the evening. She was a regular on the HBO show True Blood. She was also nominated for an award for her role in The Americans.

Lois Smith is also famous for her amazing work in theatre. She has been nominated for the Tony Award three times. In 2020, she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role in The Inheritance. This made her the oldest actor to ever win a Tony Award for acting! She also received special awards for her theatre work, including the Obie Award for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful in 2005. She is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.

In 2007, she was added to the American Theatre Hall of Fame. This was to honor her great contributions to theatre. In 2013, she received a Lifetime Achievement Obie Award. This award recognized her excellent performances in Off-Broadway shows. She has also taught, directed, and written for the stage.

Early Life and Beginnings

Lois Arlene Humbert was born in Topeka, Kansas, on November 3, 1930. She was the youngest of six children. Her father worked for a telephone company. When Lois was 11, her family moved to Seattle. Her father was very involved in their church. He would put on plays there, and young Lois would perform in them.

She studied theatre at the University of Washington. At 18, she married Wesley Dale Smith, whom she met in college. They later divorced in 1970. They had one daughter named Moon Elizabeth Smith.

Around 1951, Lois and her husband moved to New York City to start their acting careers. A famous director, Elia Kazan, encouraged her to study acting. She learned from Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

Career Highlights

Theatre Performances

Lois Smith first appeared on Broadway in 1952. She was 22 years old. Her first play was Time Out for Ginger. In 1955, she acted with the famous actress Helen Hayes in The Wisteria Trees. She also performed with Helen Hayes again in The Glass Menagerie in 1956.

In 1957, she created the role of Carol Cutrere in a play by Tennessee Williams called Orpheus Descending. This play also starred Maureen Stapleton.

From 1965 to 1967, Smith was part of the Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia. She is also a lifelong member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre.

In 1988, Smith joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. She played Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. This play was based on the famous 1939 novel. The show went on tour and then came to Broadway in 1990. Lois Smith was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance.

Since 1993, Smith has been a main member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In 1995, she starred in Buried Child by Sam Shepard. This play also moved to Broadway in 1996. She received her second Tony Award nomination for this role.

In 2005, Smith starred in an Off-Broadway show called The Trip to Bountiful. She played Carrie Watts. For this role, she won several awards, including an Obie Award.

In 2014, she played the main role in a new play called Marjorie Prime. She later starred in John in 2015. In 2018, she took on the main role in Peace for Mary Frances.

Film Roles

Smith in 1955, Warner Bros. studio publicity photo

Lois Smith's first movie was East of Eden in 1955. She worked with director Elia Kazan and actor James Dean in this film. Her next movie was a western called Strange Lady in Town. In November 1955, she was even featured on the cover of Life magazine!

After focusing on TV for a while, she returned to movies in 1970 with The Way We Live Now. She then received great reviews for her role as Partita Dupea in Five Easy Pieces (1970). She won an award for Best Supporting Actress for this film.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she played supporting roles in many movies. These included Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), and Midnight Run (1988).

In the 1990s and 2000s, she continued to appear in many films. Some of these were Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), Twister (1996), and Minority Report (2002). In the 2010s, she was in Please Give (2010) and The Nice Guys (2016).

In 2017, Lois Smith starred in the science-fiction drama Marjorie Prime. She won a Satellite Award for her role. Later that year, she had a supporting role in the popular comedy-drama Lady Bird. She was part of the cast nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She was also cast in The French Dispatch, a film by director Wes Anderson.

Television Appearances

Lois Smith first appeared on television in 1953 on Kraft Television Theatre. In 1955, she played the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind in an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents. She acted in many TV series throughout the 1950s and 1960s. She guest-starred on shows like Naked City and Dr. Kildare.

In 1959, she played the main role of Cindy in Cindy's Fella. This was a modern version of Cinderella.

In the 1970s, she was a regular on the soap opera Somerset from 1972 to 1974. She also appeared on The Doctors from 1975 to 1977. She played supporting roles in TV films like Rage of Angels (1983) and Switched at Birth (1991).

She guest-starred on many popular shows. These included Frasier, Just Shoot Me!, Touched by an Angel, and Law & Order.

In 2002, Smith appeared in The Laramie Project. In 2004, she played Anna Howard Shaw in the film Iron Jawed Angels. From 2008 to 2014, she played Adele Stackhouse, the grandmother of the main character, on the HBO series True Blood. She also played the mother-in-law of Felicity Huffman's character on Desperate Housewives.

In 2015, Smith was nominated for an award for her guest role in an episode of The Americans. In 2017, she appeared on Grace and Frankie and Younger. In 2019, she guest-starred on Mom. In 2024, she appeared in several episodes of Law & Order: Organized Crime.

Lois Smith has also been seen on many daytime soap operas. She had roles on Another World and One Life to Live.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre Performances List

Broadway Shows

Off-Broadway Shows

Awards and Nominations

See also

In Spanish: Lois Smith para niños