Lois Arlene Smith (née Humbert; born November 3, 1930) is an American actress whose career spans eight decades. She made her film debut in the 1955 drama film East of Eden, and later played supporting roles in a number of movies, including Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), The Nice Guys (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The French Dispatch (2021).
In 2017, Smith received critical acclaim for her leading performance in the science-fiction drama film Marjorie Prime, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards and Saturn Award, and won a Satellite Award. She has also had many roles on daytime and primetime television. She was a regular cast member in the HBO horror drama True Blood, and received a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series nomination for The Americans.
Smith also is known for her extensive work in the theatre. A three-time Tony Award nominee, she won the 2020 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in The Inheritance, becoming the oldest performer to win a Tony Award for acting. She also received Tony nominations for her performances in The Grapes of Wrath (1990) and Buried Child (1996). She starred in an acclaimed Off-Broadway revival of The Trip to Bountiful in 2005 for which she received an Obie Award for Best Actress, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, and a Drama Desk Award. She is an ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.
She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2007 for her outstanding contributions to the theatre. In 2013, she received a Lifetime Achievement Obie Award for excellence in Off-Broadway performances. She has taught, directed, and written for the stage.
Smith was born Lois Arlene Humbert in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of six children of Carrie (née Gottshalk) and William Humbert, who worked for a telephone company. Her father died in 1950 at age 54. Her family included her two sisters, Alice and Marvelle, and three brothers, William, Dilman, and Phillip, all of whom are now deceased. Her father moved the family to Seattle when Lois was 11 years old, and he was involved heavily in the church, staging plays there in which young Lois performed. She studied theatre at the University of Washington but did not graduate. At age 18, she married Wesley Dale Smith, whom she met in college; they divorced in 1970. They had one daughter, Moon Elizabeth Smith.
Around 1951, Smith and her husband decided to leave Seattle for New York City to begin their professional careers. After she worked with Elia Kazan on East of Eden, he encouraged her to study with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, which she did. She was also mentored in her early years in New York City by John Van Druten.
Smith made her Broadway debut in 1952 at age 22 in the play Time Out for Ginger as Joan, with Nancy Malone as Ginger and Melvyn Douglas as their father. She followed this in 1955 with The Wisteria Trees, a play that starred Helen Hayes. In 1956, she performed with Hayes in The Glass Menagerie. Also in 1955, she was given the lead role of Josephine Perry in Sally Benson's play The Young and Beautiful, which ran for 65 performances at the Longacre Theatre.
In 1957, Smith originated the role of Carol Cutrere in Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams, which also starred Maureen Stapleton. In 1958, she was directed by José Ferrer in Edwin Booth.
From 1965 to 1967, Smith starred in several plays as a company member with the Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia with Andre Gregory. She is a lifetime member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, founded by Curt Dempster in 1968.
In 1973, she returned to Broadway to appear in a revival of The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill. In 1975, she performed the role of Gaby in Corinne Jacker's play Harry Outside. She also played the lead female role in Steve Tesich's play Touching Bottoms in 1978. In 1979, she played the role of Denise in Elizabeth Stearns's play Hillbilly Women at the Long Wharf Theatre. In 1987, she played Jessie Bliss in Darrah Cloud's The Stick Wife with the Hartford Stage Company.
In 1988, Smith was cast with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago as Ma Joad in the play The Grapes of Wrath, an adaptation of the 1939 Steinbeck novel. Smith originated the stage role, and after going on tour, the production reached Broadway in 1990 and Smith earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
Also in 1988, Smith originated the role of Mrs. Campbell in Horton Foote's The Man Who Climbed the Pecan Trees. In 1989, she played Mistress Overdone in an Off-Broadway production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
Smith has been an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 1993.
In 1995, Smith starred as Halie in a revival of Buried Child by Sam Shepard at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company that transferred to Broadway in 1996, and for which she received her second nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. In 1997, Smith played the role of Betty in Defying Gravity by Jane Anderson Off-Broadway. In 1998, she played Kandall Kingsley in Beth Henley's Impossible Marriage. In 2001, she starred in the title role of Mother Courage and Her Children, and in 2002 she starred as Fanny Cavendish in a revival of The Royal Family, both with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
In 2005, Smith starred in an Off-Broadway production of The Trip to Bountiful as Carrie Watts with the Signature Theatre Company, for which she received an Obie Award for Best Actress, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, and a Drama Desk Award.
In 2010, Smith played Vera in Amy Herzog's After the Revolution, for which she was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award. In 2012 she originated the role of Mable Murphy in Sam Shepard's play Heartless, and in 2013, she starred in a revival of Horton Foote's My Old Friends. In 2014, she starred in a new play by Jordan Harrison, Marjorie Prime, originating the title role at the Mark Taper Forum. She was featured in Annie Baker's play John, which opened Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre Company on July 22, 2015, and ran to September 6.
In 2018, she took on the leading role in Brooklyn College student Lily Thorne's Peace for Mary Frances. The drama, directed by Lila Neugebauer, was given its world premiere by off-Broadway's The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center in New York. Smith's performance was praised, but the play received negative reviews from a variety of outlets from The New York Times to The Hollywood Reporter and The Wrap.
Smith made her film debut in 1955 directed by Elia Kazan in the drama film East of Eden with James Dean, Julie Harris, and Jo Van Fleet. Her next film was the western Strange Lady in Town. In November 1955, she was featured on the cover of Life magazine. Smith then focused on television work, not making a film until The Way We Live Now in 1970. She then earned critical acclaim for her role as Partita Dupea, the sister of Jack Nicholson's character in Five Easy Pieces (1970), and Smith won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.