she appeared on stage in Bell Book and Candle with Victor Jory. She began appearing in television on shows such as The Star and the Story, Stage 7, The 20th Century-Fox Hour, The Joseph Cotten Show: On Trial, Robert Montgomery Presents, Lux Video Theatre, Schlitz Playhouse, and The United States Steel Hour. At Republic she made The Eternal Sea (1955) with Sterling Hayden. She had no offers so signed to go on tour with her husband in a production of Plain and Fancy which meant she missed out on roles in the films Serenade and The Toy Tiger. Smith was in Beau James (1957) with Bob Hope, This Happy Feeling (1958) with Curt Jurgens and The Young Philadelphians with Paul Newman (1959). She also appeared on a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis radio (NBC) broadcast on January 25, 1952. Stage career While Smith was under contract at Warner Bros., she met fellow actor Craig Stevens; they wed in 1944. In her later years, Smith toured in several stage hits including the 1955 National company of Plain and Fancy, Jean Kerr's Mary, Mary, Any Wednesday and Cactus Flower, all co-starring her husband. In the 1960s Smith continued to work on television with roles in Adventures in Paradise, Michael Shayne, The Defenders, The Governor & J.J., and Marcus Welby, M.D.. Smith appeared on the cover of the May 3, 1971 issue of Time as the result of the critical acclaim for her singing and dancing role in Hal Prince's Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, which marked her long-awaited Broadway debut. In 1972, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. Her stage career continued through the 1970s, with appearances in the 1973 all-star revival of The Women (1973), the short-lived re-working of William Inge's drama Picnic, re-titled Summer Brave (1975), and the ill-fated musical Platinum (1978), which earned Smith another Tony nomination for her performance but closed after a brief run. She starred in several regional productions of Applause and then toured for more than a year as the madam in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, including a seven-month run in Los Angeles. She continued to appear on TV in movies like Nightside and shows such as The Lives of Benjamin Franklin. She also performed in nightclubs. Later work Smith returned to the big screen with star billing at the age of 54 in