Alexis Smith
| Alexis Smith | |
|---|---|
Smith in 1951
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| Born |
Margaret Alexis Smith June 8, 1921 Penticton, British Columbia, Canada |
| Died | June 9, 1993 (aged 72) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, singer |
| Years active | 1940–1993 |
| Spouse(s) | Craig Stevens (1944–1993; her death) |
Margaret Alexis Smith (June 8, 1921 – June 9, 1993) was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress and singer. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.
Born in Penticton, British Columbia, to Gladys Mabel Fitz-Simmons (a Canadian) and Alexander Smith (a Scot), her family relocated to Los Angeles when she was about a year old. Her parents both became naturalized citizens in 1939, through which she derived her United States citizenship. Smith grew up in Southern California, attending Hollywood High School. When she was 13 she made her professional debut, performing ballet at the Hollywood Bowl. She was discovered in 1940 at Los Angeles City College, acting in a school production, by a Warner Brothers' talent scout.
After being discovered by a talent scout while attending college, Smith was signed to a contract by Warner Bros. Her earliest film roles were uncredited bit parts, and it took several years for her career to gain momentum. Her first credited role was in the feature film Dive Bomber (1941), playing the female lead opposite Errol Flynn. Her appearance in The Constant Nymph (1943) was well received and led to bigger parts.
During the 1940s, Smith appeared alongside some of the most popular male stars of the day, including Errol Flynn in Gentleman Jim (1942) and San Antonio (1945) (in which she sang a special version of the popular ballad "Some Sunday Morning"), Fredric March in The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), Humphrey Bogart in Conflict (1945) and The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), Cary Grant in a sanitized, fictionalized version of the life of Cole and Linda Porter in Night and Day (1946), and Bing Crosby in Here Comes the Groom (1951), her favorite role.
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