"They all have to dress really matronly. Nothing adds 10 pounds faster than a bad hairdo and suit, but Jackie Kennedy was probably the best. And I heard President Hamilton's wife was hot for her time, or was it Andrew Jackson's?"

"I met her once when I was doing a play with her good friend Mary Steenburgen. Bill couldn't come at the last minute, so at curtain call we brought out a life-size cutout of Bill that we kept in the dressing room. Every night before we'd go on stage, we all gave (the cutout) a big kiss, so he had lipstick kisses all over him."

Beginning in the bedroom, bronze sculptures and portraits of horses pay tribute to the equestrian interests of Martha and her husband, President Charles Logan, played by returning cast member Gregory Itzin.

Pointing to a wall papered in orange and yellow squares, Smart, who starred as a boozy, sex-crazed neighbor in the 1995 Brady Bunch Movie, says, "I call this the Brady Bunch wallpaper — not my personal taste." She prefers the rustic simplicity of her real-life retreat, a Lake Tahoe home she maintains with her husband of 18 years, Richard Gilliland.

On the show's set, she passes through the wood-paneled foyer and observes, "There's a picture of George Bush Sr. on the wall — I'm not sure why," and adds, "I guess Charles is a fan of his." This inspires a laugh from Smart, herself a devout Democrat. Though the show doesn't specify Logan's political affiliation, Smart suspects she is playing a Republican. When she broke that news to her mother, also a Democrat, Smart remembers her saying, "Oh my God! You're a Republican? I hope they're paying you a lot of money."

Smart, an Emmy winner for two guest spots on Frasier, says 24's plot will explain why her character changes outfits multiple times in what is supposed to be one day in her life. She is more concerned that viewers will wonder how her character could possibly gain 6 pounds in a day — the result of Smart's fondness for potato chips. Her only other vice: poker, which she played daily with Eric Bana and Robert Duvall on the set of their upcoming film, Lucky You.

Unlike her chain-smoking character, Smart, a lifelong diabetic, gave up cigarettes 17 years ago when she became pregnant with her only child, Connor.

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