Shawnee Rebecca Smith was born July 3, 1969, in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Her mother was an oncology nurse and her dad was a financial planner and former US Air Force Pilot. When Shawnee was one they moved to Van Nuys, California where, a year later, her parents would divorce. She attended North Hollywood High School, graduating in 1987.
Shawnee began acting as a child and was in a stage play with Richard Dreyfuss at the age of 15. She won the Dramalogue Critics Award for her performance in the play “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday”, the youngest person ever to win this award. In 1981, she was in the McDonald’s commercial “Best Friends”.
She had joined the Screen Actors Guild at the age of 9 and made her feature film debut in John Huston’s 1982 adaptation of the Broadway musical “Annie”, as one of Annie Bennett Warbucks’s fellow orphans. She had a small role in the 1985 “Iron Eagle”. In 1987 she co-starred in “Summer School” and in 1988 was in the remake of “The Blob” and “Bluegrass” with Cheryl Ladd. In 1989, Shawnee was in “Who’s Harry Crumb?” and the TV series “Brand New Life”. She was also in the remake of “Desperate Hours” and then took a three-year break.
She played Julie Lawry in the 1994 Stephen King TV miniseries “The Stand” and was in “Leaving Las Vegas”. From 1998 to 2004 she was in the sitcom “Becker”. During this time she made guest appearances in the TV shows “Cagney & Lacey”, “Murder, She Wrote”, “The X-Files”, “Players”, and “Law & Order: Los Angeles”. In 2003, she was the voice of Vivian Porter in “Kim Possible”. She is well known as Amanda Young in the “Scream” movie series which she has a really hard time watching.
In 2006 she was in the 10-minute short film trailer for “Repo! The Genetic Opera”. She would play Detective Gina Harcourt in the FEARnet original series “30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust”. Shawnee made her producing debut in the six webisodes. She was the host and one of three mentors on the VH1 reality program “Scream Queens”, which aired from October 20, 2008, to December 8, 2008. For season two she was replaced by Jaime King. Smith played the role of Dr. Sullivan, child psychiatrist, in “The Grudge 3”.
Shawnee played the ex-wife of Charlie Sheen’s character in the TV series “Anger Management”. Along with acting, she is also a musician; she sings and plays the guitar, piano, and drums. She fronted the punk/metal band “Fydolla Ho” while filming Becker. She was part of a country-rock music group with actress Missi Pyle called “Smith & Pyle”. Their album “It’s OK to Be Happy” was released in 2008. She provided vocals on a cover of Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra” by Eagles of Death Metal in 2019.
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