Yeardley Smith

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Yeardley Smith

Birth name	Martha Maria Yeardley Smith
Born	July 3, 1964(age 42) Paris, France
Notable roles	Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons (1989-present)

Martha Maria Yeardley Smith (/ˈjɑrdli/; born July 3, 1964) is an American actress and voice actor who is best known for providing the voice of Lisa Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons.

1 Biography
2 Selected filmography
3 Television
4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Smith was born in Paris, France, and raised in Washington, D.C., USA. She is the daughter (and namesake) of Joseph Yeardley "Joe" Smith (May 10, 1931–January 17, 2006), The Washington Post's first official obituary editor (1977–1988), who continued working full time for The Post until 1996.

[edit] Acting career

In addition to performing as the voice of Lisa Simpson and other occasional characters on The Simpsons, Smith also appeared on the sitcoms Herman's Head and Dharma and Greg and guest-starred on Showtime's Dead Like Me and the Disney Channel's Phil of the Future. Her resume features guest appearances on Teen Angel, and the "Mathnet" segment of the Children's Television Workshop show Square One. She also appeared as an escaped juvenile prisoner named "Bonita Rokeke" in an episode of Mama's Family.

Her film credits include The Legend of Billie Jean, City Slickers, Maximum Overdrive and As Good as It Gets.

Smith admitted on The Jane Pauley Show that she had struggled with bulimia for 25 years. Coincidentally, her character Lisa Simpson suffered through an eating disorder in the episode "Sleeping with the Enemy". She is currently performing in a one-woman show called More where she exposes her eating disorder. Smith has been binge-purge free for four years as of February 18, 2007.

A twist of trivia regarding her work on The Simpsons was that she auditioned for the role of Bart Simpson, while Nancy Cartwright auditioned for the part of Lisa. However the producers felt that Smith would be better suited for Lisa's voice, while Cartwright was given the role of Bart.

[edit] Personal life

Lisa's distinctive voice differs from Smith's only in that it is higher in pitch. Smith has joked about her lack of vocal range in comparison to her Simpsons costars, saying she only has three voices: her own, Lisa's, and one that's somewhere in between. She has also said that any time Lisa sings on the show that she has to drop into her own singing voice.

According to her IMDB profile, Smith married English-Canadian actor Christopher Grove in 1990 and divorced him in 1992. She is currently married to Daniel Erickson; the couple were wed in 2002. Smith mentions Daniel Erickson as "my husband Dan" on the audio commentaries of the Simpsons Season 9 DVDs, explicitly noting that her husband "Dan" is not her castmate Dan Castellaneta.