Lois Smith

Lois Smith (born November 3, 1930) is an American actress. She has played supporting roles in films including East of Eden, Five Easy Pieces, Resurrection, Fatal Attraction, Fried Green Tomatoes, Dead Man Walking, Tumbleweeds, Twister, and Please Give. In television she has performed on series like The Americans, True Blood, and Desperate Housewives.

Smith is also known for her extensive work in the theatre, receiving two Tony Award nominations for originating the role of Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1990) and for the role of Halie in a revival of Buried Child in 1996. She also 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 was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2007 for her outstanding contributions to the theatre. In 2013 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Obie Award for excellence in Off-Broadway performance. In her career she has also taught, directed, and written for the stage.

Lois Smith (dancer)

Lois Irene Smith (8 October 1929 – 22 January 2011) was a Canadian ballet dancer and dance teacher.

Smith was born in Vancouver in 1929. She began her dance training at the British Columbia School of Ballet, and later studied with Rosemary Deveson and Mara McBirney in Vancouver. She married fellow dancer David Adams (1928–2007) in 1950. The couple had one daughter, Janine, and separated during the 1960s.

In 1951, she joined the National Ballet of Canada as the company's initial prima ballerina. Following an injury, she left the National Ballet to form her own dance school in 1969.

She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada on 23 June 1980 and invested in October 1980.

Smith died at Sechelt, British Columbia in 2011, aged 81, from a deteriorating illness. She had one daughter, Janine, with Adams.

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