Marcy playing Liza Colby on "All My Children"
Marcy playing Eden Capwell on "Santa Barbara"
LifeKids Pastor, Marcy Walker-Smith
FROM FAME TO FAITH by Heide Brandes
G
od comes to people in deep and mysterious ways, and sometimes He arrives in a stamped envelope from New Jersey. Marcy Smith, formerly and professionally known as Marcy Walker, never knew faith or religion while growing up. She certainly didn’t find it on the daytime dramas she starred in while living in New York City or Los Angeles. She did, however, open a letter weekly from a woman in New Jersey who wasn’t a fan of the daytime soaps, but just a person compelled to write each week about God to a woman she never knew. “I wanted God in my life because of the gospel I heard through her,” said Smith, now a children’s pastor in Edmond. “I wouldn’t be here today, I wouldn’t have met my husband, I wouldn’t know Jesus as my Savior now if it wasn’t for her.” Former star of daytime dramas “All My Children” and “Santa Barbara,” Smith is a vital part of the LifeChurch.tv Edmond Campus, but her road to Edmond and faith was a weaving one that took her through starlet dreams, fame and finally, despair.
22 www.edmondoutlook.com
Smith was born in Paducah, Kentucky but never stayed in one place long. The daughter of an aeronautical engineer, she went to many different schools before graduating high school in Illinois in 1979. “I say I’m from everywhere,” Smith says. “I was in Illinois thinking about college and was encouraged to go to a casting call for a PBS movie, ‘Life on the
Marcy moved to the Big Apple and landed her first role on “All My Children.” Mississippi.’ I went and they said that out of all the people who auditioned, I was the most perfect for the role of the sourthern belle because I was the most naive.” Because of her potential, beauty and talent, the casting director encouraged Smith to move to New York City. With the blessing of her parents, she moved to the Big Apple, got an agent and landed her first
role on “All My Children.” “I was happy beyond belief,” says Smith. “It was the answer to my hopes and dreams. I think whenever you are on a set, you are meeting a new family. You are a part of something, and you feel accepted in your part. But it was also a learning curve.” Smith played the roles of Liza Colby on “All My Children” from 1981 to 1984 and again from 1995 to 2005, and of Eden Capwell on “Santa Barbara” from 1984 to 1991. She was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1987 and 1988 for her role on “Santa Barbara” and won the Emmy in 1989 for her portrayal in which her character was brutally raped. “Being nominated for an Emmy was very exciting,” Smith says. “To be thought of as the best of the best was an honor and to win was fantastic. The recognition was not something I took for granted. It was pretty incredible.” Besides soap operas, Smith starred in several movies, including “The Return of Desperado,” “Terror in the Shadows,” “Bar Girls” and “Midnight’s Child.”