Lois Arlene Smith (née Humbert; born November 3, 1930) is an American actress whose career spans eight decades.

[1] 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).

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.

[12] In 1957, Smith originated the role of Carol Cutrere in Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams, which also starred Maureen Stapleton.

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.

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 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.

[14] 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.

[17] The drama, directed by Lila Neugebauer,[18] 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[19] to The Hollywood Reporter[20] and The Wrap.

In 2017, Smith appeared in the science-fiction drama film Marjorie Prime,[22] for which she won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 22nd ceremony.

Later that year, she had a supporting role in the critically acclaimed comedy-drama Lady Bird, receiving a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination.

She played supporting roles in the Emmy-nominated TV films Rage of Angels (1983), The Execution of Raymond Graham (1985), Switched at Birth (1991) and Skylark (1993).

In 2002, Smith appeared in The Laramie Project and in 2004 she portrayed Anna Howard Shaw in the Emmy-nominated film Iron Jawed Angels.

[28] In 2017 she guest-starred in "The Gun", episode five of the third season of the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, as Mrs. Hanson, the vituperative mother of Martin Sheen's character Robert.

In 2024, Smith appeared in several episodes of Law & Order: Organized Crime as "Mama Boone", matriarch of a honey farm used as a front for heroin distribution.

Soap opera fans have seen Smith on daytime in many recurring and guest-starring roles over the years, as the psychotic wife Zoe Cannell on Somerset (1972–1974), Eleanor Conrad on The Doctors (1975–1977), Ella Fitz (the co-conspirator of evil Alma Rudder) on Another World (1982–1983), Mrs. Oakes on The Edge of Night (1983), Elwinna Pendergast on All My Children, and as Dorian's imperious aunt Betsy Cramer on One Life to Live (2003–2004).