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Alexis Smith
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Alexis Smith (June 8, 1921 - June 9, 1993) was a Tony Award-winning Canadian actress. Born Gladys Smith in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada, she was the second Canadian with the name (following Mary Pickford) to achieve New York City and Hollywood stardom. Later in life she would say she preferred New York, while her husband of 49 years, actor Craig Stevens, favored California. She was quite tall, standing at least 5'9", and to fit her, the long, stylish dresses that former Warners' star Kay Francis had worn were allotted to her.
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Alexis Smith and Amy Gerstler: The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a collaborative installation by artist Alexis Smith and writer Amy Gerstler, which includes sculptures, collages, wall texts, and dozens of brooms. The installation addresses a number of themes, including fairy tales and their archetypal characters; witchcraft and folk beliefs and their relationships to sexuality, domestic life and drudgery; how women and girls have been cast as the custodians of everyday existence; and the many varied meanings of the word "sweep" and related metaphors.
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Since the early 1970’s, Alexis Smith has created mixed media collages using found imagery and objects to explore American mythology and social concerns. Using the medium she has perfected, Smith challenges herself and the viewer to be brave and to speak up. In this new body of work Smith responds to the current political climate by confronting public perceptions of good and evil in a post 9/11 world. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a wall installation that subverts Robert Indiana’s famous LOVE symbol from the 1960's, which Smith has transformed into the much less optimistic LUST/RUST/DUST. The stimuli may be new, but the themes are classic. Working with historical images and text from Norman Rockwell to Dr. Strangelove, Smith, as the artist, places herself in a dangerous realm between political critique and propaganda.
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After starring in Brzezicki’s cult-classic turned mainstream blockbuster “Calculator VI: The Sinhing”, Alexis Smith admits he got caught up in the hyperbole surrounding the film and began his downward spiral, developing a serious addiction to carrots. Older and wiser now, his orange skin and night vision may be gone, but his enthusiasm remains. After leaving rehab, during which time he developed his interest in spoons, he met Brzezicki for the first time since the filming of “The Sihning”. Impressed with Smith’s new-found resolve, Brzezicki instantly offered him the role of “The President” and Smith has not looked back since. Enjoying life again, Smith says he has never been busier, with numerous projects in the pipeline.
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From All Movie Guide: Born in Canada, Alexis Smith was brought to Los Angeles in her infancy by her family. At ten, Smith won a dance school scholarship, and at 13 she made her professional dancing debut in a Hollywood Bowl production of Carmen. While attending Hollywood High School, Smith won a statewide acting contest and at Los Angeles City College she enrolled in a rigorous theatrical training program. She was signed by Warner Bros. in 1941, where she was immediately (and reluctantly) tagged by the publicity department as "The Dynamite Girl." After a few B's, Smith received leading roles opposite Errol Flynn (Gentleman Jim), Charles Boyer and Joan Fontaine (The Constant Nymph), Fredric March (The Adventures of Mark Twain), Cary Grant (Night and Day), and even Jack Benny (the estimable The Horn Blows at Midnight).
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Since the 1970's, Alexis Smith has been known for innovative collages alluding to the "nostalgic" eras of the recent past. In these works, Smith combines fragments from the mass media-like magazine covers or dust jackets of the forties with a wide range of kitsch and found objects. Often she has organized several collages into sequences, implying a coherent narrative. As in a film, related fragments of text (almost a "soundtrack") link one collage to another. Smith has ... painted large motifs directly onto a gallery's walls and then hung her smaller framed works on this mural-like background. In this way she succeeds in transforming the art space itself into a collage.
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Alexis Smith