Shawnee Smith – Age, Career, Full Bio

Shawnee Smith is an actress and also a singer. She played the role of Jennifer Goodson in FX sitcom Anger Management. She was also a part of a music band called Smith & Pyle and albums to her name. Now, with children, marriages and more than fifty acting credits, this is a place where we take a look back to her life and long careers. So here are all the relevant facts you need to know about the star who made her debut in 1982.

Shawnee Smith – age

Shawnee Smith was born Shawnee Rebecca Smith in a place called Orangeburg in South Carolina in July 1969. Her mother is an oncologist while her father is an ex-air force fighter now a financial advisor. When a year old, the family relocated to California where the couple divorced and she grew up with her mother. She attended Ranchito Avenue Elementary School in Panorama City, Los Angeles, Madison Jr. High in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, then North Hollywood High School.

Shawnee Smith is fifty years old.

Shawnee Smith’s marriages and kids

Shawnee is a subject (some will say victim – how dare they?) of two short-lived marriages. Her first marriage was in 1998. She was married to Jason Reposar a still photographer and documentary maker. The marriage produced one child and ended in 2003.

In 2005, Shawnee Smith got married to Kai Mattoon. The marriage was five times shorter than the first. It ended in 2006. But it was as productive as the first in that it was blessed with a child.

In 2010, Shawnee gave birth to her third child. She has been in a relationship with Cleto Escobedo III the composer and music crew member. It is not clear if he is the father of her last baby.

Shawnee Smith – career

Ms. Smith began her picture career on stage. She was aged 8. Aged nine, she joined the Screen Actors Guild. In 1982, 12, she made her movie debut in the musical comedy film “Annie”. Her TV debut came in 1984, in one episode of the sitcom “Silver Spoons” on NBC. The next year, she won Youth in Film Award for Best Actress in a television film for her role in the CBS drama “Child of Innocence”. Her career continued to grow. In 1986, she played a recurring role in “All Is Forgiven” the sitcom on NBC.

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In 1988, she played the role of Meg Penny in the science fiction and horror film “The Blob” which centers around an amorphous amoeba-like creature. More than thirty years on, Ms. Smith says that people still stop her in the mall and talk about her character – and she loves it.

Between 1998 and 2004, Shawnee had her most extensive time on screen. She played Linda A flighty, uneducated young woman who works as Margaret’s aide in the lead character John Becker’s office. She appeared in this series on CBS for 129 episodes. This was her only three-figure episodic appearance on TV. The nearest she came to beating this was in “Anger Management” between 2012 and 2014 on FX as Jennifer Goodson ex-wife to the protagonist Charlie, a former professional baseball player turned anger-management therapist played by the actor Charlie Sheen. The series had two seasons of 100 episodes and Shawnee was a main cast player in 94 of them.

More on Shawnee Smith movie career

In 1998 Shawnee was part of “Breakfast for Champions”, a black comedy film adapted from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s 1973 novel of the same title. Shawnee played the role of Bonnie McMahon in the film that bombed so hard on the box office the pieces couldn’t be gathered. It made 178 thousand of a budget of 12 million dollars.

In 2004, Ms. Smith played the role of Amanda Young in the film “Saw”. She turned down the offer to play this role in the first asking as horror films give her the shivers. But she accepted to be part of the film after she saw the shorter “Saw” and decided to be part of this “Saw”. She played the role of Amanda, a heroin addict who survived the Jigsaw Killer, a man who abducts people he sees as unappreciative of their lives and forces them into death traps.

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“Saw” made more than 100 million dollars of a budget of 1 million dollars and became first of many Saw films. Shawnee was a part of “Saw II”, “Saw III”, “Saw IV” up to the sixth “Saw” in 2009. On average, each “Saw” movie made 100 million dollars in the box office. And the highest amount that was spent on any of the films was 11 million dollars.

Music career

Shawnee Smith was never Katy Perry. But she did her best. Her music career comes from her ease with musical instruments – she plays the guitar, the piano, and the drum – plus that voice. In 2000, Smith became a part of a band called  Fydolla Ho. The band disbanded in 2004 with one album to their name, released in December 2001 and titled “Untied”. After the break-up, Shawnee tried to make a solo album and failed. She was never Katy Perry.

Shawnee went on to form a duo group with the actress Missy Pyle as Smith & Pyle. The group went their separate ways in 2011 after just one album titled “It’s OK to Be Happy” but they weren’t happy with the commercial figures of the album. They were working on their second album before they found out their precious time was better spent on things that would actually be of good use. In 2013, Shawnee said in an interview she would rather concentrate on her TV scripts and her kids than the ambulance chase that was her time in the studio.

Shawnee Smith – net worth

No one who knew Shawnee Smith or has read hundreds of words about her life would deny that she has not invested in the pursuit of dollars. She has acted on stage, in films, and on TV; she has sung in a group, solo, in a duo, and solo again. There are albums recorded and released and there are albums that just wouldn’t be completed. She went as far as to create a record label. The pursuit was real. And still is. Shawnee Smith is worth 3 million dollars.

Shawnee Smith is 5 feet 3 inches or 1.6 meters.

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