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Amber Smith

Amber Smith’s route to acting began in front of a different kind of camera. Born in Tampa on March 2, 1971, she started modeling by 16, worked with Irene Marie Models in Miami Beach and spent four years modeling across Europe. Her career gained momentum after her naturally blonde hair was dyed red, sharpening a resemblance to Rita Hayworth that would later follow her onto the screen. Smith built a substantial fashion résumé. She appeared in the 1993 and 1994 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues, became Esquire’s first Vargas Girl of the 1990s and was the first model used for a Wonderbra campaign. Her work also included magazine covers for Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire, a Wolford campaign photographed by Helmut Newton, and runway appearances for Chanel and Jean Paul Gaultier. Her move into film came with Paul Mazursky’s Faithful, following a referral from Robert De Niro connected to her Casino auditions. She went on to appear in Abel Ferrara’s The Funeral, Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror Has Two Faces and American Beauty. That Hayworth resemblance proved especially useful in period-minded casting: Smith played Hayworth lookalike Susan Lefferts for Curtis Hanson and later appeared in HBO’s The Rat Pack. Smith’s most substantial leading screen role came with the Cinemax series Sin City Diaries, which debuted in 2007. She played Angelica, a Las Vegas entertainment consultant arranging activities for casino high rollers—a part that placed her modeling poise within the heightened atmosphere of Vegas television drama. Her television career also became notably candid. Smith appeared on Celebrity Rehab, Sober House and Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, publicly discussing her long struggle with opiate and alcohol addiction, as well as addiction and co-dependency within her family. Those appearances revealed a more vulnerable side of a career first shaped by carefully constructed images, fashion campaigns and an old-Hollywood resemblance.