Alexis Smith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexis Smith in an autographed publicity still for Undercover Girl (1950)
Alexis Smith in an autographed publicity still for Undercover Girl (1950)

Alexis Smith (June 8, 1921 - June 9, 1993) was a Tony Award-winning Canadian actress.

Born Gladys Smith in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada, she was the second Canadian with the name ( following Mary Pickford) to achieve New York City and Hollywood stardom. Later in life she would say she preferred New York, while her husband of 49 years, actor Craig Stevens, favored California. She was quite tall, standing at least 5'9", and to fit her, the long, stylish dresses that former Warners' star Kay Francis had worn were allotted to her.

After being noticed in a play, Smith was signed to a contract by Warner Brothers Studios. Her earliest film roles were uncredited bit parts and it took several years for her career to gain momentum, but her appearance in The Constant Nymph was well received and led to bigger parts. During the 1940s she appeared opposite some of the most popular male stars of the day, including Errol Flynn in San Antonio (1945) (in which she sang a special version of the popular ballad "Some Sunday Morning"), Humphrey Bogart in The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), and Cary Grant in a sanitized, fictional version of Cole and Linda Porter's life in Night and Day (1946).

Some of Smith's other films include Rhapsody In Blue (1945), Of Human Bondage (1946), and The Young Philadelphians (1959).

Smith appeared on the cover of the May 3, 1971 issue of Time with the announcement that she would be starring in the Hal Prince's Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. In 1972 she won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. She followed this with the 1973 all-star revival of The Women, the short-lived 1975 comedy Summer Brave, and the ill-fated 1978 musical Platinum, which drew decent notices only for her performance and quickly closed.

Smith was nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest appearance in the television sitcom Cheers in 1990.

Smith died in Los Angeles, California from brain cancer on the day after her 72nd birthday. She had no children and her husband was her only survivor.

Her final film, The Age of Innocence (1993), was released shortly after her death.

Rumors about her sexuality were prompted by lesbian author Rita Mae Brown's dedication of her book, Rubyfruit Jungle, to Smith.


Preceded by
Helen Gallagher
in No, No Nanette
Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1972
for Follies
Succeeded by
Glynis Johns
in A Little Night Music
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.