Yeardley Smith is a name that has been in Hollywood since the early 1980s. However, you may come across her without knowing that she is the voice of Lisa Simpsons in the hugely popular animated show The Simpsons, which became the TV series of most successful and longest running animation of all time.
Yeardley is especially grateful to her for her role on The Simpsons, as it allows her to be popular while living like a normal person, as many people don’t seem to recognize her facially.
“It’s wonderful to be in the middle of all this hype on the show, and people enjoying it so much, and to totally be a fly on the wall; people never recognize me just from my voice,” she once said.
In 2009, she told Guardian: “It’s the best job ever. I have nothing but gratitude for the amount of freedom The Simpsons has given me in my life. “
A voice artist extraordinaire, Smith won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Performance in Voiceover for Lisa in 1992.
Read on to find out how she got to the top, how much she earned as an actress, and details about her personal life.
Yeardley Smith Biography,
Smith was born as Martha Maria Yeardley Smith on July 3, 1964 in Paris, France. When she was just two years old, her family moved from Paris to Washington DC.
His father, Joseph Smith, had worked for United Press International in Paris, and when he arrived in the United States he became the Washington Post’s first official obituary editor. He passed in 2006.
As a child, Yeardley was often teased because of her distinctive voice. “I’ve sounded pretty much the same since I was six. Maybe [my voice is] a little deeper now,” she once said.
She first acted in 6th grade and went on to act in a number of school plays. Despite her unusual voice, Smith never aspired to be an actress, just an actress.
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Smith attended acting school and after graduation became a professional actress in 1982. She joined the local theater group Arena Stage as an apprentice. After performing with them in several plays in Washington, Smith moved to New York to pursue her career.
In New York, she appeared in the Broadwayproduction of The Real Thing. She made her film debut in 1985 in the film “Heaven Help Us”. Smith had thought his next role in The Legend of Billie Jean would become his big hit, but he failed.
After suffering several flops that caused her to doubt her future in acting, Smith moved to Los Angeles in 1986 to improve her chances. In Los Angeles, she began acting in the Living on Salvation Street theater productions for which she was paid $14 per performance.
It was on the production that she was scouted by Simpsons producer Bonnie Pietila, who needed distribution for a series of animated shorts about the Simpson family on The Tracey Ullman Show. Yeardley read for the role of Bart Simpsons but was given the role of Lisa because her voice was too high.
Outside of The Simpsons, Smith has only had a few voice roles, most notably in We Are Are Back! A Dinosaur Story (1993) and some commercials.
His movie credits include; City Slickers (1991), Toys (1992) Just Write (1997) “All It Takes” (1997), Back by Midnight (2002), The Chaperone (2011). Smith had recurring roles on the ‘Herman’s Head’ and ‘Dharma & Greg’ series, as well as a plethora of guest roles, including on Revenge.
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Yeardley Smith Facts
Smith taught herself to paint by copying other artists while filming the first season of Hermna’s Head.
She is also an author and published a children’s book titled “I, Lorelei” (2009).
His name is pronounced “Yard-lee”
She was the executive producer of the independent romantic comedy Waiting For Ophelia, which had its world premiere at the Phoenix Film Festival.
She is one of Simpson’s two voice characters who regularly performs a role. Others are said to have up to 10 roles.
In 2004, Smith performed an off-Broadway one-woman. She also opened up about her battle with bulimia as a teenager, saying it would make her high and give her a great sense of victory. She also opened up about her lonely childhood and her plastic surgeries.
She launched a women’s show line, Marchez Vous, in 2011.
Yeardley Smith Simpsons Net Salary
Smith’s highest-paying role is as Lisa on The Simpsons. She received a salary of $30,000 per episode from 1987 to 1998. From 1998 to 2004, she reached $125,000 per episode, then from 2004 to 2008, she increased to $250,000 per episode. Smith earned $400,000 per episode between 2008 and 2011. However, she was forced to take a 25% pay cut after Fox threatened to cancel the show if the production cost was not reduced. She now earns $300,000 per episode.
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This salary makes Smith one of the highest paid voice actors in Hollywood. Adding his Simpsons salary to his other projects, his net worth is estimated at $65 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Yeardley Smith Family
Yeardley Smith has previously described his family as being “top of the page and reserved.” His parents later divorced. Smith’s mother, Martha Mayor, was a paper curator for the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries.
Smith has been married and divorced twice and there is no evidence that she had any children.
She first married Christopher Grove, an English-Canadian actress in 1990. The marriage only lasted two years and she filed for divorce in 1992. She then married Daniel Erickson in 2002. They divorced six years later in 2008. In both cases, Smith cited irreconcilable differences.