Biography

Yeardley Smith

Jump to

Overview

Born
July 3, 1964 · Paris, France
Birth name
Martha Maria Yeardley Smith
Height
5′ 3″ (1.60 m)

Mini bio

Offbeat comic actress and voice specialist Yeardley Smith has made a virtue out of her distinctive looks, small figure, and child-like nasal tones. Lending vocal life to the animated role of "Lisa Simpson," the intelligent, caring, saxophone-droning, vegetarian member of the Simpson family, has been her bread-and-butter job for over a remarkable 30 years.

While Yeardley is American, she was born Martha Maria Yeardley Smith on July 3, 1964, in Paris, France where her father served as a correspondent with UPI. By the time she was two, she and her family had moved to Washington, D.C., where she was raised. A shy, introverted child, she started her pixie-like young career as a teenager at a nearby dinner theater where she played "Tinkerbell" in a musical adaptation of "Peter Pan". After receiving her high school diploma, she apprenticed for a time at the famed Arena Stage, then headed off to New York and bigger things.

Yeardley understudied the role of "Debbie" on Broadway in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing", starring Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, then took over the part for eight months. Small film offers started coming her way with Heaven Help Us (1985) and The Legend of Billie Jean (1985), so in 1986, she headed West and settled. After some work on the LA stage with "Boys and Girls/Men and Women" (1987) and "How the Other Half Loves" (1988) and a recurring role on the ground-breaking gay comedy, Brothers (1984), Yeardley won the part of daughter "Lisa Simpson". The animated character was launched on the sketch TV comedy series, The Tracey Ullman Show (1987). Two years later, she spun off into The Simpsons (1989) and still going strong after 20 years.

Yeardley has made the TV rounds on-camera as well with amusing guest appearances on Dharma & Greg (1997) (recurring), "Murphy Brown," "Empty Nest" and "Mama's Family." She also had regular role for three seasons as "Louise" on Herman's Head (1991). Other film supports during that time included roles in City Slickers (1991), Jingle All the Way (1996) and As Good as It Gets (1997).

Yeardley continues to be quite active well into the millennium. In 2004, Yeardley performed front-and-center in her own one-woman autobiographical show entitled "More" in New York. Other comedic and occasional dramatic film parts include the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back by Midnight (2004), an animated full-length The Simpsons Movie (2007), Waiting for Ophelia (2009), High School (2010), Tug (2010), Virginia (2010), The Chaperone (2011), Miles (2016), All Square (2018), Love & Debt (2019) and Gossamer Folds (2020). On TV, Yeardley appeared as a guest on "Becker," "The Big Bang Theory," "Hot in Cleveland" and "Mom."

Married and divorced twice, Yeardley's first husband was actor Christopher Grove.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Family

Spouses
Parents

Trademarks

Best known as the voice of "Lisa Simpson" on the TV show The Simpsons (1989)
High pitched, nasal voice

Trivia

Originally read for the role of "Bart" when auditioning for The Simpsons (1989), but her voice was too high and sounded like a girl, so she lightened her voice up a little and then auditioned and won the role of "Lisa". Nancy Cartwright had originally read for "Lisa", but was given the role of "Bart" instead.
Is only one of two actresses (the other being Marcia Wallace) on The Simpsons (1989) to regularly play only one character. Most of the other actors play ten or more characters, while Julie Kavner plays four characters and Phil Hartman played two characters.
Her father, J.Y. Smith, who died in 2006, was a longtime obituary writer for The Washington Post.
Her forename is pronounced "Yard-lee".
Of the core 6 The Simpsons performers, Yeardley is the youngest.

Quotes

Actually, you wouldn't believe how many people come up to me and say 'This is my fantasy: to be in bed with Lisa Simpson and have her say "Oh more, more!"' What is the matter with you people? This is sick! -- on the Australian talk show "Denton".
It's usually character stuff that I'm offered unless they want a real offbeat leading role. Most of the time, I'm everybody's best friend. Or their annoying friend. It's like the story of my life. I will never get to play the Cinderella roles.
In my dreams, I was Rita Hayworth, Kim Basinger. I just wanted to be that long, tall drink of water with flowing blond hair and large blue eyes and cheekbones you could actually see - you know, be that. And I wasn't, so I hated myself. I'd beat myself up, tear myself to shreds. Now I've made peace with it. I don't mind it at all; I'd rather be who I am. It's comfortable. It's me. I got weary of putting so much energy into hating myself".
Being a part of "As Good as It Gets" was a great job for me. It was fun taking a bit of a break from playing Lisa Simpson and doing real actual live-action camera work. I enjoyed having the honor of working with Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Greg Kinnear. And especially that cute little dog. Overall, I enjoyed working on the film, and I wish I at least got an Oscar nomination.
You can't create a monster, then whine when it stomps on a few buildings.