Here is the biography of Alexandra Smothers:
Alexandra Smothers was born at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California. Her father, a third-generation Cardinal at Stanford, jokingly referred to her as a "smart baby" due to her birth at such a prestigious institution. Her parents, her father a respected attorney and her mother a waitress at their family's restaurant, the "Rainbow Hut" on the Central Coast, moved frequently during her childhood. She was raised by her grandparents, with the help of her great aunt and uncle from Palo Alto, who took her from foster care and provided her with a boarding school education. This diverse upbringing gave her a rich well to draw from as an actress.
Smothers was befriended by Academy Award-nominated actress Carrie Snodgress, who mentored her in her journey to becoming a working actress and mother. She studied with Mr. Cochran, a former Yale professor who taught Meryl Streep and Danny Glover. Smothers credits Oliver Stone for inspiring her to pursue a career in films after meeting him at the Fiesta Five Movie Theater in Santa Barbara.
After a ten-year absence, Smothers' father re-entered her life, and she began to learn about the business of show from his roommate, Thomas Gray, a unit publicist. By 1996, she was getting hundreds of auditions and small roles, including appearances on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and in Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!"
Smothers married her son's father, a free-spirited globetrotter, and moved back to the Central Coast to raise her newborn son, Isaac, and help her sick sister. She changed her name from Brandy to Alexandra and devoted herself to her son's upbringing. Two years later, while on a goodwill ambassador trip to aid an orphanage in Mexico, a producer took notice of her, and she was hired as an on-screen narrator for "Target Earth" and "Eden Conservancy."
Smothers worked closely with director Patti Kane, creating a theatre in Paso Robles that debuted with her performance as Cherie in "Bus Stop" in 2000. She played Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and appeared in "Streetcar Named Desire" and "National Velvet" on stage. In 2007, she represented Lucky Jeans and Liz Claiborne as a model in Sri Lanka and had a emotional journey down the coast.
Smothers engaged the help of a talented cinematographer, Paolo Cascio, to create a short film about her sister's recent death. The story, originally titled "Illa Ensis," was changed to "Broken" and premiered at the Alex Theatre in 2009. In 2010, she joined directors Roberto Fernando Canuto and Xiaoxi Xu on their feature script, which was written with her in mind to play one of the leads.
Smothers' first feature film, "Desire Street," premiered in 2009, and her father passed away in 2010. She hastily married someone she hadn't dated five days later in her grief. In the summer of 2010, she played Margie the waitress in "Silent Crossroads" and won the "Best Performance in an Acting Role" award from the 'Action on Film' Film Festival. She has continued to work in the film industry, including a role in the mob comedy feature "Pizza With Bullets."
