Shelley Smith dead at 70: Model turned actress achieved game show fame on The $10,000 Pyramid and founded Egg Donor Program
- She began her career in fashion in the 1970s before breaking into acting, playing opposite Martin Short on the legal sitcom The Associates
- However her greatest fame on television came when she discovered an outlet for her intelligence on the game show circuit, particularly The $10,000 Pyramid
- In the 1990s, amid her own difficulties having children, she devoted herself to helping other couples with fertility issues by founding the Egg Donor Program
Model-turned-actress Shelley Smith died aged 70 this Tuesday, with her husband Michael Maguire and her twins Nicholas and Miranda at her bedside.
Maguire was in tears as he broke the news of her death in a Facebook video, days after announcing she had gone into cardiac arrest and been hospitalized.
She began her career in fashion in the 1970s before breaking into acting, playing opposite Martin Short on the legal sitcom The Associates.
However her greatest fame on television came when she discovered an outlet for her intelligence on the game show circuit, particularly The $10,000 Pyramid.
In the 1990s, amid her own difficulties having children, she devoted herself to helping other couples with fertility issues by founding the Egg Donor Program.
Throwback: Model-turned-actress Shelley Smith died aged 70 this Tuesday; pictured in a 1979 publicity still for her sitcom The Associates
Smith was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1952, and after graduating Connecticut College she joined the fashion industry in the early 1970s.
She modeled in variety of top magazines including Vogue and Mademoiselle, and in 1981 she landed on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.
By that point she had embarked on a burgeoning acting career, beginning in 1979 with the TV movie Mirror, Mirror, which starred Janet Leigh of Psycho fame.
That same year she successfully landed her own show – The Associates, a sitcom about a group of young lawyers at a Wall Street firm.
With James L. Brooks among its creators and Martin Short among its stars, the series was a hit with the critics but lasted only one season on ABC.
Smith, however, bounced back, and in 1983 got another show of her own – For Love And Honor, a drama thought to be inspired by An Officer And A Gentleman.
Amid a cast that included Keenan Ivory Wayans, Smith featured as a beautiful nurse treating members of the 88th Airborne Division.
That same decade, Smith burst onto the game show scene, winning the hearts of the public on such programs as Body Language and Super Password.
Radiant: In 1979, the year she broke into acting, she successfully landed her own show – The Associates, a sitcom about a group of young lawyers at a Wall Street firm
Remember when: With James L. Brooks among its creators and Martin Short (left) among its stars, the series was a hit with the critics but lasted only one season on ABC
Her most enduring gig was Pyramid, which she followed from its early days as The $10,000 Pyramid through various markups until it became The $100,000 Pyramid.
Smith used the combination of her sharp mind and soothing sangfroid to become a formidable player and an audience favorite.
In his video statement on her death, her widower noted that she had been ‘so proud’ of the money she helped her teammates win on the show.
Her personal life, however, was marred by years of heartache as she and her then-husband Reid Nathan attempted to have a baby.
They welcomed a son called Justin together in 1989, only to be struck by tragedy when their newborn died at just three days old.
Eventually, in March 1995, she was able to give birth to her twins Nicholas and Miranda after combining her own brother’s sperm with a donor’s eggs.
Smith’s brother Leigh, who had three children of his own, was just days away from a scheduled vasectomy when his sister called and asked for his help.
She evidently wanted to procure a donor from her own family because she wanted to have a genetic connection with her children.
Triumphant: However her greatest fame on television came when she discovered an outlet for her intelligence on the game show circuit, particularly The $10,000 Pyramid
Making it happen: Smith used the combination of her sharp mind and soothing sangfroid to become a formidable player and an audience favorite
Nicholas was the first of her twins to arrive, and she told the Los Angeles Times: ‘I’ll never forget the moment of looking into this little boy’s eyes.’
When Nicholas was born, he ‘wasn’t fussing or crying. He came straight down from heaven, and he just looked right at me,’ said his mother.
Her widower Michael Maguire recalled in his in memoriam video that ‘when she wanted to have children and was having a hard time herself, she went through the process and saw what was wrong with the industry.’
He added that ‘following her own efforts to have NIcky and Miranda, she started a company, the Egg Donor program, that also added later the surrogacy program, that helped thousands and thousands of people have babies.’
His voice rising with emotion, he said: ‘It was so sweet, and she loved every time, and she got to relive her own struggles and help other people avoid those struggles. It was beautiful. It was beautiful to watch.’
Smith’s final acting credit was an episode of Murder, She Wrote in 1991, the year she left showbiz and founded her Egg Donor Program.
She went back to college, procuring a master’s in psychology from Antioch University and starting a new profession as a marriage and family therapist.
In the last few years of her life, despite having sold the Egg Donor Program, she continued providing therapy over the internet.
Maguire revealed that when she died this week, Smith ‘wasn’t in any pain, and she passed peacefully with me and Nicky and Miranda, her children, holding her hand and kissing her head and telling her how much we loved her.’
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