Jean Smart

Actor

• Born: September 13, 1951
• Place of Birth: Seattle, Washington

Contribution: Jean Smart is best known for her work in television, including her Emmy Award–winning roles on Frasier and Hacks.

Background

Jean Smart was born in Seattle, Washington, on September 13, 1951, to Douglas Smart and Kay Sanders. She discovered her interest in acting at Ballard High School in Seattle. After graduating in 1969, she went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Washington in the late 1970s.

Smart began her career with the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1978. She moved to New York City in 1980, where she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for her role in the Off-Broadway production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove the same year. In 1981 she played Marlene Dietrich in the Broadway production of Piaf. Her role in the show attracted the attention of a number of television producers, and Smart moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in television and film in 1982.

Career

After appearing in a handful of unsuccessful sitcoms, Smart landed the role of Charlene Frazier-Stillfield on the CBS sitcom Designing Women (1986–93). The show, about women who own an interior design firm, also originally starred Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, and Annie Potts. The show made Smart a national star, and her sweet but empty-headed Charlene became one of her most famous characters. Still, she left the show in 1991, at the height of its success, to pursue other projects. She went on to appear in several films and the short-lived CBS sitcom and cult favorite High Society (1995–96), in which she played an alcoholic romance novelist.

In 2000 Smart appeared on the popular NBC sitcom Frasier as Frasier’s erratic high school crush, Lorna Lenley (later renamed Lana Gardner). The guest role was originally meant to be much smaller but ended up lasting for two seasons and earned Smart two Emmy Awards for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series, in 2000 and 2001. In 2001 Smart was also nominated for an Emmy for outstanding actress in a drama series for her multiple appearances on the CBS dramedy The District.

Smart played another volatile, Lana-like woman on the Fox drama 24. From 2006 to 2007, she appeared as First Lady Martha Logan to Gregory Itzin’s President Charles Logan. The role was based on Martha Mitchell, the loud, truth-telling wife of attorney general John Mitchell, whom the Richard Nixon administration tried to discredit in the 1970s. Logan became one of the show’s most memorable characters, and Smart was nominated for two Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the role.

In 2007 Smart played Regina Newly on the award-winning, though short-lived, ABC sitcom Samantha Who? In the show, Regina’s daughter Samantha (Christina Applegate) suffers from amnesia, forgetting, among other things, that she and her mother are estranged. Regina hopes to have a second chance at a relationship with her daughter. Smart relished the outrageous character who, in the show’s pilot, schemes to film Samantha waking from her coma in hopes of using the footage to appear on the show Extreme Homemaker. (She misses the moment and asks Samantha to reenact it.) Smart won an Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for the role in 2008. The show garnered strong ratings and critical praise, but erratic scheduling caused viewership to decline, and it was cancelled in 2009.

For the better part of the next decade, Smart made numerous television guest appearances, including on the popular shows Psych, Veep, and Arrested Development. She also landed a few recurring parts. She portrayed Governor Pat Jameson during the 2010–11 season of the Hawaii Five-0 remake. In 2011 Smart accepted the recurring role of district attorney Roseanna Remmick on the NBC crime dramedy Harry’s Law. The following year, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding guest actress in a drama series for the part. In 2015 she played crime-family matriarch Floyd Gerhardt on the television series Fargo, for which she was nominated for a 2016 Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress. Smart went on to portray another mother, Arlane Hart, in the drama Dirty John, which debuted in 2018. The year 2019 saw Smart cast in two superhero series, as mutant investigator Melanie Bird in Legion and federal investigator Laurie Blake in Watchmen.

Smart once again achieved critical acclaim in the HBO Max series Hacks (2021– ), in which she starred as aging comedian Deborah Vance. The role garnered Smart another Emmy Award, this time for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award, in 2021. Smart repeated in 2022 and 2024 when she won her second and third Emmy Awards for the series. Hacks also gave Smart her first Golden Globe Award, when she won in 2022 for best actress in a television series. She won her first Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series in 2022 and a second the following year.

In 2022, Smart also appeared in the detective drama Mare of Easttown, a miniseries that streamed on HBO Max, for which she received another Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress. That year, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Throughout her career, Smart continued to act in plays and films occasionally. In 2001 she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway revival of The Man Who Came to Dinner. She has also appeared in a number of films, among them Sweet Home Alabama (2002), I Heart Huckabees (2004), Garden State (2004), Hope Springs (2012), Senior Moment (2021), and Babylon (2022).

Impact

Throughout her long and successful career, Smart has been praised for her versatility, excelling in both comedies and dramas. Though she also excels at playing lead roles, Smart has made a name for herself playing award-winning, scene-stealing supporting roles.

Personal Life

Smart was married to the actor Richard Gilliland from 1987 to 2021, when he died from a heart condition. They met when he appeared as a guest star on Designing Women. They had two sons, Connor and Forrest.

Offscreen, Smart is an activist to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, promote brain-cancer research, and raise awareness about type 1 diabetes, all of which have affected her or her immediate family members.

Bibliography

Dubin, Zan. “Jean Smart’s ‘High’ Hopes: Designing Women Star Returns to TV—in a Very Different Role.” Los Angeles Times 27 Nov. 1995. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

"Jean Smart." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0005443/. Accessed 23 Sept. 2024.

“Jean Smart ’69.” Ballard High School Foundation. Ballard High School Foundation, 2012. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.Kelley, Peter. “Class Actress: Alumna Jean Smart Visits UW.” UW Today. U of Washington, 9 Mar. 2006. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

King, Susan. “A Smart Move: Jean Smart Doesn’t Regret Leaving Designing Women for Other Projects.” Los Angeles Times 20 Dec. 1992. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

Krug, Kurt Anthony. “Seattle Native Jean Smart Happily Back in the TV Grind for a Stint on 24.” Seattle Times. Seattle Times, 20 Mar. 2006. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

Morgan, John, and Stephen A. Shoop. “Jean Smart Has Designs on Curing Alzheimer’s.” USA Today. Gannett, 21 May 2004. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

Rhodes, Joe. “The First Lady Is Seriously off Her Rocker.” New York Times. New York Times, 19 Feb. 2006. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

Schneider, Michael. "Jean Smart Has Been TV's MVP for Years. With 'Hacks' and 'Mare of Easttown,' the World Finally Noticed." Variety, 2021, variety.com/2021/tv/features/jean-smart-hacks-mare-of-easttown-emmys-1235064464/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2022.

Smart, Jean. “My Interview with Jean Smart.” Interview by Greg Hernandez. Out in Hollywood. Los Angeles Daily News, 10 May 2008. Web. 8 Aug. 2013.

Soloski, Alexis. "Jean Smart Wins a Third Emmy for 'Hacks.'" The New York Times, 15 Sept. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/arts/television/jean-smart-emmy-hacks.html. Accessed 23 Sept. 2024.