![]() Throughout her near-50-year career on the stage and screen, Smart has been cast in a remarkably diverse range of roles. Jean Smart has played Marlene Dietrich, Lady Macbeth, Aileen Wuornos, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.įor anyone who had the strange and wonderful experience of watching Mare of Easttown and Hacks in their initial, overlapping runs on HBO and HBO Max, Smart’s versatility as a performer is no surprise. But before she was cast in her breakout role as Charlene Frazier in Designing Women, Smart had recurring roles in two sitcoms that failed to catch on: Reggie, which ran for one season in 1983, and the same year’s second-and-final season of Teachers Only. Smart had bit parts in several TV shows and movies in the early 1980s, including The Facts of Life, Newhart, and Remington Steele, and she was a regular on the short-lived HBO prison drama Maximum Security. (Clockwise, from bottom center): Jean Smart, Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, and Annie Potts star in Designing Women. Designing Women wasn't Jean Smart's first sitcom. ![]() “They’d never had themselves represented like that, as normal, charming people.” 4. “omen would come six, eight, ten times,” Smart told The New Yorker in a recent interview. While a number of Broadway and off-Broadway plays have centered on characters who identify as gay men, lesbian representation in mainstream theater productions has been considerably scarcer it was practically nonexistent before Bluefish Cove. Smart originated the role in the play’s 1980 off-Broadway debut, then reprised it the following year in a Los Angeles production. Smart earned plaudits for several stage performances throughout the late 1970s, but it was her role as Lil in Jane Chambers’s landmark lesbian drama Last Summer at Bluefish Cove that supercharged her career. Jean Smart's career was launched by a groundbreaking LGBTQ stage production. ![]() ![]() Her stage credits with the festival include Much Ado About Nothing, Henry VI parts I and II, and a 1975 production of Romeo and Juliet in which she co-starred with a pre- Altered States William Hurt. Before she was on television, Jean Smart was an accomplished Shakespearean actress.Īfter she graduated from the University of Washington Professional Actor Training Program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1974, Smart spent a few summers performing with the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has worked steadily in theater, television, and film ever since. She managed to eke out a living for several years in Seattle’s professional theater scene before moving to New York City, where she made her Broadway debut when she was 29 years old. In an interview for NPR’s Fresh Air, Smart revealed that she’s never had a “day job” besides acting. Jean Smart accepts the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for Frasier in 2001. Since she left college, acting is the only job Jean Smart has ever had. After 20 years of Emmy nods for guest and supporting roles, Smart’s overdue turn in the spotlight has arrived.įrom her days as a classically trained Shakespearean actress to her recent stint as an incredibly lifelike mannequin, here are a few things that will make you appreciate Jean Smart even more. Her recent Emmy nominations for Hacks and Mare of Easttown are her 10th and 11th to date (she’s won three so far), but her nomination for Hacks marks the first time she’s been recognized in a lead-actress category. Now that we’re in the midst of what some are calling the “ Jeanaissance,” it seems that Smart is finally getting her due. Her comic timing is impeccable-just try to make it through her “Put your brother on the phone!” bit from Frasier without laughing-but her recent turns in Watchmen, Mare of Easttown, and Hacks serve as powerful reminders that out-acting Jean Smart is a fool’s errand. But despite starring turns in TV movies and a couple of short-lived sitcoms, Smart has mostly been known as a character actress and scene-stealing guest star. Ever since she played the sweet but sharp-tongued Charlene Frazier on Designing Women, Jean Smart’s fans have been waiting for the rest of the world to realize just how terrific she is.
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