Martha Smith: Her Palms Say She’s a Nervous Genius
This is an excerpt from an interview conducted by TV Guidein the June 14, 1986 Issue. The cover quote reads, “Her Palms Say She’s a Nervous Genius.” The header for the article is: “Martha Smith, hand-reader, treasures her steady job on Scarecrow and Mrs. King - and hopes to shake off a year in which she was robbed, divorced and stalked by a prowler.” The article is by Lisa See.
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Martha Smith’s trademark blonde curls cascade about her shoulders. She dresses in th eepitome of Melrose Avenue chic - skintight pants, oversized shirts, pointed lace-up boots. She’s super-thin, and will later say.. “I don’t think food makes it to my stomach. It just ends up as vapor floating around the dining room.” She’s breathless, nervous and has left her purse at home - a fact that she will bring up depreciatingly throughout lunch.
“People always assume I’m dumb,” says Martha Smith, who plays the snippy, always professional Francine Desmond on CBS’s Scarecrow and Mrs. King. you can tell when they start talking v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y to you. I just wait to see if they’ll take the time to get to know me. In th emeantime, I do the palmistry on them. I look at their hands to take their character readings.”
She’s philosophical about the bad luck that has followed her in the last year. She’s gotten a divorce, had her checkbook stolen, been stalked by a prowler, and had her exercise trainer run off with her money.
When I look at my own palms, I see someone who is very nervous,” says Smith, as she scrutinizes the fine lines in her hands. “My Jupiter finger is very strong. Napoleon had these same lines. It means we’re leaders, not followers, forward looking, expansive. My head and heart lines are combined. That’s very rare. I’ve only met 20 people who have this characteristic in their palms; and three of them are in my family. The theory is that we have amazing powers or genius. When you know your own hands, you can figure out what to watch for.”
Born and raised in Farmingon Michigan, Martha Smith started modeling at age 15 and “hit the big time” when she got into auto show modeling, “Do you know what it’s like to stand on a turntable all day talking about imitation-wood vinyl applique on an Oldsmobile? The men in the audience!” She lowers her voice a few octaves. “‘Look at those headlights! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ ‘Do you come with the car?’ Pretty soon I was up there doing send offs about smooth sides and sculpturing just to see if anyone was listening.” The highlight came in 1972, when Smith became Ms. Parts (with the title of Miss Accessories going to a young woman who could accomodate all th eletters across her chest). “All it meant was that I got to wear white go-go boots and hot pants and roll in the hay with camshafts or try to look seductive with windsheild wipers stuck artistically in my hair.”
In 1975, Smith moved to Los Angeles with the idea of saving enough money to go to college. Within a month she had landed a role in the movie “Winds of Autumn, then went on to play a dozen bit parts on television. “I always played the mafioso’s girlfriend or the girl in the bikini or the girl by the pool. I was stabbed, chloroformed, shot and strangled. In th epilot for Quincy, I played a blonde, bikini-clad, cadaver. I spent days on my back trying to look dead in my bikini on the beach in midwinter with sand fleas jumpipng all over me and Jack Klugman scraping my feet.”
Then came “National Lampoons Animal House,” where she was forever immortalized as the blonde in the bra nadgirdle with the flip hairdo who appeared in most of the ads. Smith says, “We were just a bunch of kids going out to have fun and make a movie.” The blockbuster got her a new agent - who, she says, wouldn’t send her out for auditions.
Finally in 1982, she landed a role on Days of our Lives. “As Sandy Horton, I cried for six months. I was the worlds clumsiest surgeon. I even killed my fiance on the operating table. Everything bad that can happen to one person happened to Sandy, except an audit. So I was sent ‘across the river’ to a new clinic and never seen again.” (The character later returned, with another actress playing the role.)
But Smith isn’t the kind to join her colleagues in the unemplyment lines between jobs. She took her soap-opera earnings and began a greeting card company called Tickled Pink. Later, during the actors strike, she produced and starred in “Vanities” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. At another low point, she got together with a group of friends to develop a Beverly hills board game where players collect status points and win shopping sprees to Rodeo Drive. If these various small businesses aren’t enough, Smith has enrolled in several courses at UCLA - studying photojournalism, languages and celebrity interviewing.
“As an actor, panic sets in between jobs,” Smith explains. “I can’t be idle. Luckily, whenever I sign up for a class, I get a job. I can’t imagine anything worse than not working.”
Smith is nothing if not plucky when it comes to trying out for roles. During one audition they asked if I could sing and dance Las Vegas-style,” Smith recalls. Of course I said yes. I was supposed to come back th enext day with sheet music and four numbers. I had no range, couldn’t dance, and the star was Debbie Allen. We’re talking Desperado City!” Surprisingly she was hired for “Ebony, Ivory, and Jade” - and unsuccessful pilot about three CIA agents who work undercover as Las Vegas performers. “I’ve been taking singing and dancing lessons ever since. I’m ready now if anyone ever needs another pilot.”
For the last three years, Smith has had a steady job as Francine, which may have kept her from new ventures, but certainly has it’s plus side. “The audience likes a good bitch, and the great thing is I can go home and be all peaches and cream.” Today, home is a new house in Coldwater Canyon decorated in “early spumoni.” She has a boyfriend - an aspiring actor - who spens his time creating and manufacturing nostalgia products.
on the Scarecrow set, it’s clear that Smith is chummy with the cast and crew. “When we’re geting ready inth emorning Mel Stewart and I beat Martha up unmercifully, says Bruce Boxleitner (Scarecrow), who today is costumedin bandages from pretend near fatal gunshot wounds. “She’s the butt of all of our jokes. Still she always comes back for more. We go to lunch often and she pays.”
“Write that down,” laughs Smith, “because it’s absolutely true!”
“She’s too infrequently utilized,” sings out Mel Stewart, who plays Scarecrow’s boss, Billy. After some hemming and hawing, it turns out this is a standing joke on the set stemming from a review in Variety. The quote is now the predictable rejoinder whenever Smith flubs a line.”
Kate Jackson - who not only stars as Mrs. King in Scarecrow, but owns a sizable piece of it - has a long-standing reputation for being difficult, but waits a half hour in her dressing room to be asked questions about Smith. Later, when the first interview doesn’t work out, she telephones with a standard what-a-great-professional quote, then ads: “Martha’s a terrific gal. She deserves a nice article, so write nice.”