Mary Alice

Mary Alice Smith was born on December 3, 1936, in Indianola, Mississippi, to Ozelar (née Jurnakin/Journakin) and Sam Smith. Her family relocated to Chicago when she was two years old, and she later graduated from Chicago Teacher's College, now known as Chicago State University, where she trained as an educator and subsequently taught at an elementary school. Known professionally as Mary Alice, she built a career spanning television, film, and stage that lasted from the mid-1960s until her retirement in 2005.

Alice returned to acting in the mid-1960s through community theater, appearing in three plays by Douglass Turner Ward, among them Days of Absence and Happy Endings. During this period she also washed the cast's laundry for a salary of $200 a week. Between 1969 and 1973, she performed in multiple productions at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in Manhattan's East Village. Her first appearance there came in September 1969 in Adrienne Kennedy's A Rat's Mass, directed by Seth Allen, in which she played Sister Rat. She reprised that role in October 1969 and again in January 1971, both productions also directed by Allen. In 1970 she appeared in Ed Bullins' Street Sounds, directed by Hugh Gittens, and later performed in Lamar Alford's Thoughts in December 1972 and January 1973.

Her Broadway career extended from 1971 to 1995 and included appearances in No Place to Be Somebody, The Shadow Box, Fences, and Having Our Say. Her most celebrated stage work came in August Wilson's Fences in 1987, for which she received both the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play. In 2000, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Alice made her screen debut in the 1974 film The Education of Sonny Carson and subsequently appeared in the television series Police Woman and Sanford and Son. During the mid-1980s she played Ellie Grant Hubbard on the soap opera All My Children and portrayed Cora in Stan Lathan's 1984 film Beat Street. From 1987 to 1989 she co-starred as Leticia "Lettie" Bostic on the sitcom A Different World. Her film credits include Effie Williams in the 1976 musical drama Sparkle, Malcolm X (1992), The Inkwell (1994), and Down in the Delta (1998). In 1993 she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her recurring role on I'll Fly Away. Following the death of Gloria Foster, who originated the role of the Oracle, Alice stepped into the part for The Matrix Revolutions (2003), the video game Enter the Matrix (2003), and The Matrix Online before retiring from acting in 2005.

Mary Alice died on July 27, 2022, at her Manhattan residence at the age of 85, of natural causes.