“What Pam Grier was to Blaxploitation movies, what Bruce Lee was to Kung Fu movies, what Burt Reynolds was to Good Ol’ Boy movies, Rainbeaux Smith was to Cheerleader movies. She is a very unique presence in movies. She truly has, without trying whatsoever, a Marilyn Monroe quality. She doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe at all, she just has that kind of vacantness. She’s not so much acting as she is existing. Imagine Marilyn Monroe as kind of a ’70s hippie junkie, then you kind of have Rainbeaux Smith.” – Quentin Tarantino
Cheryl Lynn “Rainbeaux” Smith seemed almost too good to be true—or maybe she just had one of those smiles that made you want the world to treat her kindly. Born in Los Angeles on June 6, 1957, she fudged her age by a couple of years to slip past Screen Actors Guild restrictions, hungry for roles and opportunity.
She grew up in a showbiz family: her mother, Jayne, had been a vaudeville dancer before teaching ballet in Los Angeles. By the time Cheryl arrived, her parents were already in their 40s. They divorced when she was seven, and Cheryl moved with her mother near the Sunset Strip, a place buzzing with music, rebellion, and temptation.
She was drawn to the arts early, sketching constantly, singing, and carrying herself with the aura people described as “mystical,” “an old soul,” and “a child‑woman.” Even as a teenager, she radiated something both fragile and magnetic.
Still in junior high, she landed her first role in Leland Auslender’s experimental short The Birth of Aphrodite, which screened at Cannes. From there she slid into B‑movies that defined a strange, glittering corner of 1970s exploitation cinema: Caged Heat, Phantom of the Paradise, The Swinging Cheerleaders, Revenge of the Cheerleaders, The Pom Pom Girls, The Incredible Melting Man, Laserblast, and even a cameo in Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke.
Her breakout came with Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (1973). Selected from over 200 actresses, she anchored the eerie fairy tale with a presence that was less performance than pure being. Writer Chris Barbour once noted, “She doesn’t hit a false note in the entire film as she handles movement, music, comedy, full nudity, and pathos with equal aplomb.”
It was around this time she earned the nickname “Rainbeaux,” a nod to her technicolor fashion sense and colorful personality. She had already begun dabbling in drugs, though at first it didn’t seem to dull her spark.
Rainbeaux in Her Own Words
Her letters to friends show both her humor and candor:
On Revenge of the Cheerleaders:
“This is my absolute favorite of its kind. The other ones I’d personally like to forget. If I ever become a millionaire, there’ll be a couple of those others missing off the shelves forever! Ha.”
She recalled being pregnant during filming, and how director Richard Lerner simply wrote her condition into the movie, turning her waddling cheerleader into part of the comedy.
On Farewell, My Lovely (1975):
She showed up to her audition in a wild swirl of silver, lace, and jewelry, looking nothing like a 1940s character actress. Director Dick Richards hired her on the spot. Working alongside Robert Mitchum was surreal, and her “gangster boyfriend” in the film turned out to be an ambitious young actor named Sylvester Stallone.
On Cinderella (1977):
She admitted she was hesitant about the nudity but found the script funny and feather‑light. “At first I was leery… but after reading it, I realized if it were X‑rated it would probably be the softest ever made.” She rode the film through, later appearing in Laserblast and Parasite for the same producers.
Music, Mayhem, and the Fall
Rainbeaux wasn’t only an actress. She played drums and briefly performed with The Runaways during the filming of We’re All Crazy Now. Later, she fronted her own band, The L.A. Girls.
But by the late 1970s, the promise was unraveling. She gave birth to her only son in 1976 but soon fell deeper into drugs, sliding into full‑blown heroin addiction. Hollywood, once smitten with her dreamy screen presence, stopped calling.
By twenty‑six she had vanished from the industry. She served time in jail, using her artistic gifts behind bars to draw tattoos for fellow inmates. On release she drifted between shelters, halfway houses, and eventually a cold garage owned by her father. Her mother’s death drove her further into depression.
She picked up money where she could—sometimes through prostitution—always feeding the habit. Friends faded, roles disappeared, and the “Man of 1,000 Holds” nickname Tarantino once invoked seemed bitterly ironic: she was held not by fame, but by addiction.
Rainbeaux Smith died in 2002 of liver disease and hepatitis at just 45.
Epilogue
Tarantino was right—she wasn’t really “acting.” Rainbeaux was a fleeting, fragile presence, caught on celluloid in a moment of 1970s pop‑culture weirdness. She burned bright, like a cheerleader leading a pep rally for a team that was already down by fifty points. You knew she’d never win the game, but you couldn’t stop watching her wave the pom‑poms.
