Afton Smith

Smith was born on December 3, 1967 in Northport in the town of Huntington on Long Island, New York. She is exactly a year older than Fraser, who was born on December 3, 1968. Little is known about her family and childhood.

Smith began her screen career with the 1987 crime drama ‘Less Than Zero’. Also starring James Spader, Jami Gertz, and Robert Downey Jr., the film was loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name. In her next project, the 1987 television film ‘Once Again’, she portrayed a character credited simply as the “Girl in Disco”.

After four years of struggling and not getting any work, she was cast in the romantic-comedy ‘Pyrates’, which narrated the story of a couple (Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick) who experience pyrokinesis after they have sex. Smith’s next film was ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’, also released in 1991. The comedy-drama was based on Fannie Flagg’s novel ‘Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe’ and Smith played Leona Threadgoode, a member of the Threadgoode family, around whom the film revolves.

Her first hit film was ‘Reality Bites’, a romantic-comedy released in 1994. She portrayed Janine, a girl who Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke) dates. Although she appeared on the screen for a very short period, her character has a significant contribution to the progression of the plot.

In 1995, she guest-starred in an uncredited role in the season one episode ‘Party!!!’ of UPN’s sitcom ‘Pig Sty’. That was her first and only television appearance. In the independent comedy-drama ‘A Reason to Believe’, she played a minor character named Becky.

Smith and Fraser met at a barbecue at Winona Ryder's house on July 4, 1993. Ryder, who was then filming ‘Reality Bites’ which also starred Smith, introduced her to Fraser. They dated for four years and got engaged in October 1997.

On September 27, 1998, Smith and Fraser married in the garden at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles. Their first son, Griffin Arthur Fraser, was born on September 17, 2002. She gave birth to their second son, Holden Fletcher Fraser, on August 16, 2004, and third son, Leland Francis Fraser, on May 2, 2006.

Smith and Fraser were having problems for quite a while. In December 2007, Fraser’s publicist announced that the couple had decided to separate. The divorce proceedings began sometime in April 2008. The court, seeing that Fraser was one of the top stars of Hollywood, while Smith, for all intent and purpose, was a homemaker, ordered Fraser to pay her $50,000 monthly in alimony. Furthermore, he was told to pay her an additional $300,000 a year in child support.

In early 2013, Fraser asked the court to reduce the alimony and child support, stating he was not professionally as active as he used to be. Smith, in reply, insisted that he was still earning at least $3 million a year and hence, he should continue to pay the amount that was originally agreed upon. The case has since been settled.