Jean E. Smart (born
September 13,
1951) is a multiple
Emmy Award-winning
American film, television, and stage
actress. Smart is particularly known for her comedic roles, one of the best known being her role as
Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the
CBS sitcom
Designing Women. She later gained critical acclaim for dramatic work, with her portrayal of
Martha Logan on
24. Smart appears as Regina Newly on the
ABC sitcom
Samantha Who?, another comedic role which garnered the actress an Emmy Award in 2008.
Biography
Early life
Smart was born in
Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Kay and Douglas Smart
[[1]], a teacher.
[Jean Smart Biography (1952?-)][Jean Smart Biography - Yahoo! Movies] The second of four children, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was thirteen. She is a 1969 graduate of
Ballard High School, located in Seattle. It is there that she gained an interest in acting in the drama program. Smart is a member of the
University of Washington chapter of the
Alpha Delta Pi sorority.
Career
After graduating from college, Smart began her career appearing in Regional theater and
Off-Broadway productions during the mid 1970s. She made her
Broadway debut portraying
Marlene Dietrich in the 1981 play
Piaf, a role which she would later reprise for the 1984 television version. Also in 1981, Smart was nominated for a
Drama Desk Award for her performance in the
Off-Broadway play
Last Summer at Bluefish Cove.
Smart began working in television in several smaller to mid size guest parts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, appearing in such shows as
The Facts of Life,
Alice, and
Remington Steele among several others. Her big break came when she was cast in the starring role of
Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the comedy series
Designing Women from
1986 to
1991.
After departing from
Designing Women, Smart's career hit a lag during the 1990s with her work mostly concentrated within made for TV movies and smaller to mid-size roles in films. Notably she portrayed
serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the TV movie
Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story (1992), Ory Baxter in a television version of
The Yearling (1994), Sally Brewton in the television mini-series
Scarlett (1995), and Mrs. Dittmeyer in
The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) . In 1995 Smart landed her own series,
High Society, which co-starred
Mary McDonnell. The show, however, was canceled after just 13 episodes. Her other roles in 1990s include Dana Colby in
Steve Martin's
Undue Influence (1998), Holly in
Neil Simon's
The Odd Couple II (1998), and Deborah Sloane in
Guinevere (1999) among others.
In 2000, Smart's career took a turn for the better when she landed the role of Lana Gardner on the hit show
Frasier. She went on to win two
Emmy Awards for
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2001 she was nominated for a
Tony Award for her performance in
The Man Who Came to Dinner. She soon landed roles in several high profile films including Stella Kay Perry in the film
Sweet Home Alabama, Kate Sanderson in
Bringing Down The House, and Carol in
Garden State. She also provided the voice of the alcoholic chain-smoking Pickles Oblong on
The Oblongs and played the role of Supervisor of Detectives and ex-wife to
Chief Jack Mannion of the Metropolitan Police Department on
The District.
In 2004 she was cast in a lead role in the short-lived sitcom
Center of the Universe. The following year she voiced
Dr. Anne Possible in
Kim Possible
In January 2006, Smart joined the cast of
24 playing the mentally-unhinged
First Lady of the United States,
Martha Logan, to actor
Gregory Itzin's President
Charles Logan. Her work was critically praised and she received back-to-back
Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama for the role in 2006 and 2007.
Smart is currently starring in the sitcom
Samantha Who? as Samantha's overbearing mother. She won the 2008 Emmy award for best supporting actress in a comedy series for that role.
Personal life
Smart is married to actor
Richard Gilliland, whom she met while working on the set of
Designing Women (He played J.D. Shackelford, the boyfriend of Annie Potts' character, Mary Jo). They have one son, Connor. Gilliland played Captain Stan Cotter on
24 while Smart joined the cast as Martha Logan for season 5. (He was in the 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. episode.)
She has contributed to the 2008 campaigns of
Barack Obama and
John Edwards[[2]].
Filmography
