Jimmy Smits

American actor (born 1955)

Jimmy L. Smits is an American actor. He is best known for playing attorney Victor Sifuentes on the 1980s–1990s legal drama L.A. Law, NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the 1990s–2000s police drama NYPD Blue, Matt Santos on the political drama The West Wing, and for appearing in Switch (1991), My Family (1995), The Jane Austen Book Club (2007), and In the Heights (2021). He also appeared as Bail Organa in the Star Wars franchise and as ADA Miguel Prado in Dexter. From 2012 to 2014, he joined the main cast of Sons of Anarchy as Nero Padilla. Smits also portrayed Elijah Strait in the NBC drama series Bluff City Law.

Smits was born in Brooklyn, New York. Smits's father, Cornelis Leendert Smits (1929–2015), was from Paramaribo, Suriname, and was of Dutch descent. Smits's mother, Emilina (née Pola; 1930–2015), was Puerto Rican, born in Peñuelas. He and his two sisters, Yvonne and Diana, grew up in a working-class neighborhood. When he was ten years old, he moved to Puerto Rico for a couple of years. Until then he did not speak Spanish. He described attending a Spanish-only school as "jarring" and "traumatic."

Smits was raised in a strict, devout Roman Catholic family. He identifies as Puerto Rican and frequently visits Puerto Rico.

Smits was an athlete in his youth. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College in 1980 and an MFA from Cornell University in 1982.

Date of Birth	9th July 1955
Age	69 Years
Zodiac Sign	Cancer
Country	United States of America
Current City	Brooklyn
Birth Place	Brooklyn
Nationality	United States of America
Citizenship	United States of America
Language	English
Reference	IMDB