The tragic story of Limerick-born actress Constance Smith, who made over 30 movies in the 1950s but whose life ended in poverty and despair, is the subject of a major documentary to be shown on TG4 on Thursday 3 January.
Constance Smith was born in 1928 and lived at Wolfe Tone Street in Limerick city centre, the eldest of 11 children.
Her family was poor. They moved to Dublin and their circumstances became a lot worse when her father died.
Her striking beauty was first noticed in a photographic competition for a lookalike to Heddy Lamarr in the 1940s, and she later got a screen test for the Rank organisation which saw her eventually moved to Hollywood and contracted to 20th Century Fox films.
She went on to work in over 30 films and was active during the 1950s, and was a presenter at the Oscars ceremony in 1952.
The actress regularly clashed with film studios and producers and had a reputation for being headstrong, having a fiery temper, and for fighting for better roles.
She was eventually out of contract in Hollywood. She later made a number of films in Italy, but her career floundered and her life was blighted by drugs and alcohol.
She married three times, and at one stage was imprisoned for stabbing her third husband, producer Paul Rotha. It was the second time she had attacked him.
In 1960, to much fanfare, she returned with him to visit her old home in Limerick and her visit was widely reported.
She ended up poor and working as a cleaner, and she died in 2003 in London.
The documentary outlining her life, 'Constance Smith-Hollywood Tragedy', which charts her life story and features interviews with her family and contemporaries, was screened in Limerick last October.
It featured as one of the highlights of the year's Richard Harris International Film Festival given her close association with the city.
It was accompanied by an exhibition of archive material from her life curated by the Limerick film archive.
